T  FROM 
Meyer  Donation 


THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 
OF  JOHN  HAY 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I 


THE  LIFE 
AND  LETTERS  OF 

JOHN  HAY 

BY 

WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 

I 

VOLUME  I 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,   1908,   BY  CLARA  S.   HAY 

COPYRIGHT,   1914  AND  191$,   BY  HARPER  &    BROTHERS 
COPYRIGHT,   1915,  BY  WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  October  1315 


,   1916 


TO 

HELEN   HAY   WHITNEY 
ALICE   HAY   WADSWORTH 

AND 

CLARENCE   LEONARD   HAY 

CHILDREN   OF 

JOHN   HAY 

THE  AUTHOR  DEDICATES 
THIS   BIOGRAPHY 


331158 


PREFACE 

IN  order  that  readers  may  not  be  disappointed  in 
their  expectations,  let  me  say  at  the  outset  that 
this  is  a  personal  biography  and  not  a  political  his 
tory.  The  time  has  not  yet  come  when  it  would  be 
proper  to  give  the  names  of  all  witnesses  and  to  cite 
by  direct  reference  the  official  documents,  as  is  re 
quired  in  a  formal  history.  There  is  also  much  ma 
terial  in  the  State  Archives  of  England,  France,  Ger 
many,  and  Russia,  which  may  not  be  available  for 
publication  for  a  long  time  to  come,  if  ever.  So  I 
have  endeavored  to  let  John  Hay  tell  his  own  story, 
wherever  this  was  possible.  Being  in  many  respects 
an  ideal  letter-writer,  he  recorded  his  impressions  so 
freshly  and  so  vividly  that  he  never  leaves  us  in 
doubt  as  to  what  he  thought  of  persons,  political 
affairs,  or  life's  experiences.  My  part  has  been  to 
sketch  in  a  sufficient  background  to  render  intelli 
gible  each  episode  or  situation,  so  that  Hay's  rela 
tion  to  it  would  be  clear  almost  at  a  glance. 

Shortly  after  Mr.  Hay's  death,  Mrs.  Hay  assem 
bled  a  considerable  mass  of  his  letters  to  his  more  in 
timate  correspondents,  which  she  edited  with  selec 
tions  from  his  Diaries.  She  had  a  few  copies  of  these 


viii  PREFACE 

memorials  printed  privately  for  distribution  among 
friends.  Her  volumes  form  the  basis  of  the  present 
biography ;  but  I  have  drawn  from  a  still  larger  store 
of  material,  including  Mr.  Hay's  letter-books,  docu 
ments  in  the  Department  of  State,  and  files,  not  only 
of  his  own  letters,  but  also  of  those  of  his  official 
colleagues  and  friends.  In  addition,  many  persons 
who  knew  him  in  his  middle  and  later  life  have  kindly 
given  me  their  recollections  of  him. 

Wherever  the  actual  form  of  word  or  phrase 
seemed  to  require  exact  reproduction,  I  have  printed 
it  as  he  wrote  it ;  but  in  many  cases  he  used  abbrevi 
ations,  and  in  his  Journals  even  short-hand  symbols, 
which  I  have  not  hesitated  to  expand,  always  taking 
care,  however,  not  to  change  his  meaning.  For  the 
convenience  of  the  reader  should  be  kept  in  view, 
when  it  does  not  involve  the  sacrifice  of  essentials. 
In  those  volumes  which  Mrs.  Hay  edited  she  scrup 
ulously  substituted  capital  letters  or  dashes  for  all 
the  proper  names.  I  have  been  unable  in  several 
cases  to  recover  the  original  letters  which  she  used 
and  so  I  have  been  obliged  to  rely  upon  the  version 
which  she  printed.  This  will  explain  the  appearance 
here  of  capital  letters  and  dashes  where  I  could  not 
identify  the  original  names;  but  occasionally  I  too 
have  suppressed  names  where  it  seemed  advisable  to 
do  so. 


PREFACE  ix 

It  is  not  possible  for  me  to  mention  here,  as  I 
should  like  to  do,  all  those  persons  who  have  assisted 
me  in  the  preparation  of  this  work,  but  I  cannot  close 
without  making  grateful  acknowledgment  to  Mr. 
Hay's  daughters,  Mrs.  Whitney  and  Mrs.  Wads- 
worth;  to  the  Honorable  and  Mrs.  Charles  E.  Hay; 
to  Mr.  Samuel  Mather;  to  President  Theodore  Roose 
velt;  to  President  William  H.  Taft;  to  Senators 
Henry  Cabot  Lodge  and  Elihu  Root;  to  the  Honor 
able  Henry  White,  late  Ambassador  to  Italy  and  to 
France;  to  the  Honorable  Joseph  H.  Choate,  late 
Ambassador  to  Great  Britain;  to  General  John  W. 
Foster,  former  Secretary  of  State;  to  the  Honorable 
Charlemagne  Tower,  late  Ambassador  to  Germany 
and  to  Russia;  to  the  Honorable  Alvey  A.  Adee, 
Francis  B.  Loomis,  and  William  Phillips,  Assistant 
Secretaries  of  State;  to  the  Honorable  Herbert  W. 
Bowen,  former  Minister  to  Venezuela;  to  Professor 
Harry  L.  Koopman,  Librarian  of  the  John  Hay  Li 
brary  at  Brown  University;  to  Professor  Brander 
Matthews;  to  Admiral  and  Mrs.  F.  E.  Chadwick;  to 
the  Honorable  Wayne  MacVeagh;  to  Mr.  William 
D.  Howells;  to  Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes;  to  Dr.  W.  W. 
Keen ;  and  to  Miss  Helen  Nicolay. 

Needless  to  say,  the  responsibility  for  all  statements 
and  opinions  rests  with  me,  except  in  cases  where  my 
informants  have  authorized  me  to  give  their  names. 


x  PREFACE 

As  I  have  been  prevented  from  revising  the  final 
proofs,  I  shall  be  grateful  to  readers  who  will  notify 
to  me  any  errors  they  may  find. 

The  index  has  been  made  by  Mr.  George  B.  Ives, 
to  whom  I  am  also  indebted  for  many  suggestions. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
August  i, 


CONTENTS 

I.  BEGINNINGS  i 

II.  LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY  23 

III.  THE  POET  IN  EXILE  52 

IV.  THE  NEW  LIFE  74 
V.  FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  90 

VI.  WAR  IN  EARNEST  115 

VII.  ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH  149 

VIII.  THE  GREAT  COMPANION  184 

IX.  THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT— PARIS  221 

X.  WASHINGTON  DURING  RECONSTRUCTION          245 

XI.  THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA  274 

XII.  THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — SPAIN  314 

XIII.  JOURNALISM  329 

XIV.  AUTHORSHIP  353 
XV.  FRIENDSHIPS!  383 

XVI.  POLITICS  418 


ABBREVIATIONS 

Addresses  =  Addresses  of  John  Hay.   New  York,  1907. 
N.  &  H.  =  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History.  By  John  G.  Nicolay 

and  John  Hay.  10  vols.  New  York,  1890. 
Poems  =  Poems.  By  John  Hay.  Revised  Edition.  Boston,  1890. 
Poet  in  Exile  =  A  Poet  in  Exile.   Early  Letters  of  John  Hay.  Edited 
by  Caroline  Ticknor.  Boston,  1910. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

LINCOLN  AND  HIS  SECRETARIES,  JOHN  HAY  AND 
J.  G.  NICOLAY  (photogravure}  Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph,  by  L.  C.  Handy,  of  the  original  picture  in  the  possession 
of  Miss  Nicolay  in  Washington.  The  original  is  a  photograph  retouched 
and  with  a  background  painted  in  watercolor  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Nicolay. 

JOHN  HAY'S  BIRTHPLACE,  SALEM,   INDIANA  16 

UNIVERSITY  HALL,   BROWN  UNIVERSITY  32 

JOHN  HAY  WHEN  A  STUDENT  AT  BROWN  UNIVER 
SITY  48 

SCHOOLHOUSE  AT  WARSAW,   ILLINOIS  152 

JOHN  HAY'S  EARLIEST   HOME   AT  WARSAW  152 

PAGE  OF  HAY'S  DIARY  RELATING  TO  THE  CONSE 
CRATION  OF  THE  MILITARY  CEMETERY  AT  GET 
TYSBURG,  NOV.  19,  1863  206 

DESCRIPTION  OF  NAPOLEON  III   IN  HAY'S  DIARY  236 
CLARA  STONE  HAY  352 

JOHN   HAY  AT  THE  TIME  OF  HIS  MARRIAGE   IN 

1874  388 


THE  LIFE  AND 
LETTERS  OF  JOHN  HAY 

CHAPTER   I 

BEGINNINGS 

DURING  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  the  vicissitudes  in  the  personal  fortunes 
of  Americans  were  so  swift,  and  yet  so  common, 
that  contemporaries  took  them  almost  as  matters 
of  course.  In  truth,  however,  not  since  the  Eliza 
bethan  age,  and  then  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  had 
anything  similar  been  seen.  It  was  as  if,  in  the  ani 
mal  kingdom,  not  merely  individuals  but  whole 
varieties  should  change  their  nature  so  rapidly  as 
to  become  scarcely  recognizable  after  the  lapse  of  a 
single  generation.  The  children  of  privation  grew  up 
to  be  masters  of  untold  wealth.  An  obscure  rail- 
splitter  became  President  of  the  United  States,  wield 
ing  a  power  surpassing  that  of  Europe's  absolute 
monarchs.  And  as  if  the  natural  expansion  over  a 
vast  continent  did  not  offer  sufficient  opportuni 
ties  for  individual  development,  there  intervened  a 
Civil  War  which  served  as  a  ladder  for  talents  which 
lie  dormant  in  peace. 


2  JOHN  HAY 

Among  the  many  who  were  a  part  of  this  process 
of  transformation  was  John  Hay.  Born  iheLSon <of  a 
frontier  doctor,  in  a  small  dwelling  on  the  edge  of  the 
Western  wilderness,  he  lived,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
in  a  palace  at  Washington,  in  the  midst  of  a  world 
crisis  which  his  counsel  helped  to  direct. 

Hay  himself,  at  a  dinner  of  the  Ohio  Society 
of  New  York,  on  January  17,  1903,  summed  up  in 
pleasant  fashion  the  contrasts  in  his  career.  "When 
I  look  back  on  the  shifting  scenes  of  my  life,"  he 
said,  "if  I  am  not  that  altogether  deplorable  crea 
ture,  a  man  without  a  country,  I  am,  when  it  comes 
to  pull  and  prestige,  almost  equally  bereft,  as  I  am  a 
man  without  a  State.  I  was  born  in  Indiana,  I  grew 
up  in  Illinois,  I  was  educated  in  Rhode  Island,  and 
it  is  no  blame  to  that  scholarly  community  that  I 
know  so  little.  I  learned  my  law  in  Springfield  and 
my  politics  in  Washington,  my  diplomacy  in  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa.  I  have  a  farm  in  New  Hampshire 
and  desk-room  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  When 
I  look  to  the  springs  from  which  my  blood  descends, 
the  first  ancestors  I  ever  heard  of  were  a  Scotchman, 
who  was  half  English,  and  a  German  woman,  who 
was  half  French.  Of  my  immediate  progenitors,  my 
mother  was  from  New  England  and  my  father  was 
from  the  South.  In  this  bewilderment  of  origin  and 
experience,  I  can  only  put  on  an  aspect  of  deep  hu- 


BEGINNINGS  3 

mility  in  any  gathering  of  favorite  sons,  and  confess 
that  I  am  nothing  but  an  American."  l 

An  American  he  was,  on  both  sides  of  his  house, 
but  with  an  heirloom  to  which  theorists  in  heredity 
might  attribute  his  cosmopolitan  affinities.  For  al 
though  the  Hays  had  their  roots  in  Scotland,  one  of 
them,  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
took  service  under  the  Elector  Palatine.  What  rank 
he  held  in  the  Elector's  army  I  do  not  know,  nor 
whether  he  himself  emigrated  with  the  swarm  of 
Germans  who  came  over  from  the  Palatinate  to 
Pennsylvania  about  1750.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that 
of  his  four  sons  John,  the  eldest,  settled  at  York, 
Pennsylvania,  while  Adam  went  on  to  Berkeley 
County,  Virginia,  and  made  his  home  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  Adam  probably  did  his 
share  of  Indian  fighting;  possibly  he  enlisted  in  the 
Revolution;  at  any  rate,  his  son  John  remembered 
being  patted  on  the  head  by  General  Washington. 
This  John,  born  February  13,  1775,  growing  restive 
under  his  father's  severe  treatment,  struck  out  for 
himself  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  joined  a  party  of  Vir 
ginians  who  tramped  across  the  mountains  into  Ken 
tucky,  and  found  an  abode  at  Lexington.  There  he 
married  Jemima  Coulter,  who  bore  him  fourteen 
children.  For  thirty-five  years  he  helped  to  upbuild 

1  Addresses,  219-20. 


4  JOHN  HAY 

that  town,  which  boasted  of  its  refinements  and 
intellectual  interests;  and  he  had  for  a  neighbor, 
Henry  Clay,  another  Virginian,  who  also  sought  his 
fortune  in  Kentucky  soon  after  John  Hay's  arrival. 
Hay  became  one  of  Clay's  followers,  hated  Andrew 
Jackson  and  detested  slavery. 

The  latter  antipathy  led  him  in  1830  to  cross  the 
Ohio  River  into  the  free  State  of  Illinois,  where  he 
established  himself  at  Springfield.  That  same  year 
Abraham  Lincoln  moved  into  Sangamon  County,  and 
as  time  went  on  he  and  the  elder  Hay  were  friends. 
Old  John  Hay  died  May  20,  1865,  having  lived  "to 
watch  Lincoln's  funeral  pass  his  windows." 

Among  his  many  children,  Charles,  born  Febru 
ary  7,  1801,  in  Fayette  County,  Kentucky,  was  edu 
cated  at  Lexington,  where  he  received  the  diploma 
of  doctor  of  medicine,  and  being,  like  his  father,  a 
hater  of  slavery,  he  crossed  into  Indiana  in  1830,  and 
began  to  practice  his  profession  in  the  village  of 
Salem,  a  few  miles  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  The 
following  year,  on  October  13,  1831,  he  married  there 
Helen  Leonard,1  three  years  his  junior,  a  young 
woman  of  pure  New  England  stock,  come  into  the 
west  from  Middleboro,  Massachusetts,  to  live  with 
her  sister.  The  husband  of  this  sister,  John  Hay 

1  Born  at  Assonet,  near  New  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  February 
7,  1804, 


BEGINNINGS  5 

Farnham,  was  the  leading  lawyer  of  Salem  and  its 
neighborhood. 

Thus,  after  four  generations  of  wanderings  out 
of  Scotland  to  the  Rhenish  Palatinate,  and  thence  to 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Indiana,  the 
Hay  line  met  that  of  the  Leonards,  who  had  emi 
grated  from  England  to  Massachusetts  in  the  days 
of  the  Stuarts. 

At  Salem,  John  Milton  Hay,  the  third  child  l  of 
Dr.  Charles  and  Helen  Hay,  was  born  October  8, 
1838,  in  a  small  one-storied  brick  house,  symbolical 
of  the  straitness  of  pioneer  existence.  But  out  of 
those  border  cabins,  like  oaks  out  of  acorns,  sprang 
many  a  man  whose  life  became  a  part  of  the  nation's 
history. 

In  1834,  Dr.  Hay,  in  partnership  with  Royal  B. 
Child,  issued  the  Salem  Monitor,  a  newspaper  of  ap 
proved  Whig  views,  to  which  he  contributed  articles. 
During  the  Harrison  campaign  of  1840  he  wrote  the 

1  The  other  children  were:  Edward  Leonard,  b.  Nov.  9,  1832;  d. 
Oct.  8,  1840.  Augustus  Leonard,  b.  Dec.  2,  1834;  served  in  the  Civil 
War,  and  ^became  captain  of  the  Ninth  U.S.  Infantry;  d.  Nov.  12, 
1904.  Mary  Pierce,  born  Dec.  17,  1836,  married  Captain  A.  C.  Wool- 
folk,  U.S.A.,  in  1863;  he  was  later  a  circuit  judge,  and  died  at 
Denver,  Colorado,  in  1880;  she  died  March  21,  1914.  Charles  Ed 
ward,  b.  March  23,  1841;  served  during  the  Civil  War  in  the  Third 
U.S.  Cavalry  and  on  General  Hunter's  staff;  was  subsequently 
Mayor  of  Springfield,  Illinois;  married  Mary  Ridgely,  May  10,  1865. 
Helen  Jemima,  b.  at  Warsaw,  Illinois,  Sept.  13,  1844;  married  Har- 
wood  O.  Whitney  in  1870;  died  June  19,  1873.  Dr.  Charles  Hay 
died  at  Warsaw,  Sept.  18,  1884;  his  wife  died  there  Feb.  18,  1893. 


6  JOHN  HAY 

political  leaders,  which  show,  according  to  a  local 
writer,  that  he  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  is 
sues  of  his  time  and  "handled  them  in  a  masterly 


manner." 


Either  because  Salem  offered  too  narrow  a  field 
for  an  energetic  young  doctor,  or  because  Charles 
Hay  was  impelled  by  the  desire,  common  to  the 
Western  settlers  of  his  time,  to  move  on  in  search  of 
better  conditions,  he  took  his  family  in  1841  to  War 
saw,  Illinois.  This  frontier  settlement,  perched  on 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  at  the  head  of  the  navi 
gation  of  the  great  river,  and  opposite  the  mouth  of 
the  Des  Moines,  counted  then  only  a  few  hundred 
inhabitants ;  but  the  surrounding  country  was  fertile, 
its  climate  was  healthful,  and  its  outlook  on  Mis 
souri  and  the  boundless  possibilities  of  the  Far  West 
seemed  to  promise  that  it  would  become  an  impor 
tant  distributing  center. 

Many  years  later  Hay  wrote  to  a  friend:  "Towns 
are  sometimes  absurdly  named.  I  lived  at  Spunky 
Point  on  the  Mississippi!  This  is  a  graphic,  classic, 
characteristic  designation  of  a  geographical  and  eth 
nological  significance.  But  some  idiots,  just  before 
I  was  born,  who  had  read  Miss  Porter,1  thought 
Warsaw  would  be  much  more  genteel,  and  so  we  are 

1  Jane  Porter  (1776-1850)  published,  in  1803,  Thaddeus  of  War 
saw,  a  romance  which  had  a  great  vogue  for  half  a  century. 


BEGINNINGS  7 

Nicodemussed  into  nothing  for  the  rest  of  time.  I 
hope  every  man  who  was  engaged  in  the  outrage  is 
called  Smith  in  Heaven."  1 

At  Warsaw,  the  young  Hays  passed  their  child 
hood.  Their  father's  practice,  which  he  pursued  on 
horseback,  led  him  far  up  and  down  the  river  and 
inland  through  the  neighboring  counties.  Life  was 
undeniably  hard.  It  provided  the  material  necessa 
ries,  but  few  luxuries;  it  called  for  enterprise,  cour 
age,  resourcefulness,  versatility.  The  husband  must 
be  a  jack-of-all-trades;  the  wife  must  not  only  per 
form  the  duties  of  cook  and  maid  and  housekeeper, 
but  nurse  and  rear  the  children,  and,  outside  of  the 
small  towns,  she  must  spin  and  make  the  family  cloth 
ing.  During  the  forties  of  the  last  century,  the  cruel- 
est  hardships  of  the  pioneer  days  had  been  outgrown 
in  the  Western  Illinois  settlements,  but  the  railroads 
had  not  yet  brought  the  conveniences  of  civilization, 
or  opened  the  way  to  Eastern  markets,  or  quite  dis 
pelled  the  brooding  sense  of  isolation  which,  no  mat 
ter  how  bravely  self-reliance  may  face  it,  prevents 
a  well-rounded  life. 

John  Hay  himself,  in  writing  of  Lincoln,  traversed 
the  notion,  spread  by  a  few  survivors,  that  the  pio 
neers  enjoyed  a  glorious  existence.  "  They  see  it,"  he 
says,  "through  a  rosy  mist  of  memory,  transfigured 
1  Hay  to  Miss  H.  K.  Loring,  June  30,  1870. 


8  JOHN  HAY 

by  the  eternal  magic  of  youth.  The  sober  fact  is  that 
the  life  was  a  hard  one,  with  few  rational  pleasures, 
few  wholesome  appliances.  The  strong  ones  lived, 
and  some  even  attained  great  length  of  years ;  but  to 
the  many  age  came  early  and  was  full  of  infirmity 
and  pain.  If  we  could  go  back  to  what  our  fore 
fathers  endured  in  clearing  the  Western  wilderness, 
we  could  then  better  appreciate  our  obligations  to 
them."  1  And  he  cites  a  letter  from  Lincoln  who,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-nine,  calls  himself  an  old  man. 

We  must  not,  however,  confuse  the  pioneers  who 
blazed  their  way  into  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  the  North 
west  Territory  with  the  successive  waves  of  immi 
grants  from  Ireland,  Southern  Italy,  Hungary,  Po 
land,  Greece,  and  Western  Asia  which  latterly  have 
at  times  threatened  to  submerge  our  institutions. 
The  Irish  bog-trotter  was  as  illiterate  and  bigoted  as 
the  Calabrian  peasant  or  the  Russian  serf;  while  the 
pitiable  offscourings  of  the  European  capitals  surely 
planted  the  slums  in  our  own  cities  and  rendered 
honest  and  efficient  municipal  government  an  almost 
insuperable  task.  The  pioneers  of  Indiana  and 
Illinois,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  they  came 
from  Virginia  through  Kentucky,  or  from  Pennsyl 
vania  down  the  Ohio,  or  from  New  England  direct, 
had  been  nourished  on  certain  common  principles. 
1  N.  &  H.,  i,  68-69. 


BEGINNINGS  9 

Whether  they  traced  their  descent  from  Cove 
nanter,  Roundhead,  or  Cavalier,  they  believed  in 
political  and  religious  liberty.  They  respected  trial 
by  jury  and  those  other  safeguards  of  the  individ 
ual,  which  were  the  cornerstone  of  Anglo-Saxon 
justice.  Their  fathers,  North  and  South,  had  fought 
in  the  Revolutionary  War  to  uphold  the  proposition 
that  there  should  be  no  taxation  without  repre 
sentation,  and  they  themselves  placed  passionate 
trust  in  popular  government.  The  New  England- 
ers  brought  with  them  the  town  meeting  and  the 
country  school.  Whoever  would  might  read  the  Bible 
unforbidden  by  priest  and  unprevented  by  illiteracy. 
Even  among  the  '  poor  white  trash  '  from  the  South 
there  lingered,  however  dimly,  traces  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  tradition.  Young  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  be 
reft  of  opportunity  for  culture  as  any  lad  in  the 
country,  had  access  to  the  Bible  and  "The  Pil 
grim's  Progress,"  ^sop's  "Fables,"  and  "Robinson 
Crusoe,"  and,  a  little  later,  to  Shakespeare,  Burns, 
and  Blackstone's  "Commentaries."  With  the  Eng 
lish  Bible  and  Shakespeare  one  may  inherit  not 
only  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition,  but  also  the  world's 
supreme  achievements  in  prose  literature,  in  poetry, 
and  in  religion. 

No  doubt  the  settlers,  men  of  energy  and  initia 
tive,  were  too  busy  developing  the  new  country  to 


io  JOHN  HAY 

pay  much  heed  to  books;  but  they  recognized  the 
need  of  education  in  technical  concerns,  and  they 
had  not  wholly  lost  the  respect  for  learning  as  an 
ideal  which  had  come  down  to  them  from  their  Brit 
ish  forebears.  To  them  the  spoken  word  was  the  liv 
ing  word.  Lawyers,  politicians,  preachers,  lecturers 
flourished  among  them.  Politics,  which  involved  the 
interpretation  of  the  Constitution  and  fundamental 
conceptions  of  morals  and  humanity,  became  their 
vital  interest.  Should  Slavery  be  allowed  in  the  new 
communities?  If  not,  where  draw  the  line  of  restric 
tion?  If  the  South  persisted  in  slaveholding,  how 
long  could  the  nation  survive,  half  bond,  half  free? 
Was  not  the  preservation  of  the  Union  more  impor 
tant  than  the  welfare  of  the  negro? 

However  unequipped  with  the  refinements  of  civ 
ilization,  a  people  which,  besides  conquering  for  itself 
a  home  in  the  wilderness,  was  earnestly  confronting 
such  questions,  could  not  be  charged  with  stagnation. 

These  were  the  general  conditions,  material  and 
intellectual,  which  formed  the  background  of  John 
Hay's  boyhood ;  and  as  his  father,  grandfather,  and 
uncle  made  their  homes  in  towns  which  New  Eng- 
landers  had  settled,  he  grew  up  in  an  anti-slavery 
atmosphere. 

Among  the  Hay  papers  the  earliest  I  find  are  two 


BEGINNINGS  n 

letters  from  Charles  Hay  at  Salem  to  his  parents  at 
Springfield.  They  are  yellow,  time-stained  docu 
ments,  folded  and  wafered  as  was  the  custom  before 
the  days  of  envelopes,  without  postmark,  and  with 
the  postage,  i8f  cents  each,  written  in  ink  on  the 
cover.  Letter-writing  was  a  costly  pleasure  then. 
The  first  letter  reads  as  follows :  — 

SALEM,  Nov.  25th,  1832. 

DEAR  FATHER  AND  MOTHER  — 

I  presume  before  this  time  that  you  have  received 
my  former  letter  and  although  I  have  not  received  an 
answer  to  it  I  deem  it  proper  to  write  you  another. 
I  hope  before  this  time  that  you  are  comfortably 
settled  and  perhaps  nearly  or  quite  ready  for  busi 
ness.  I  shall  be  gratified  to  hear  from  you  soon,  and 
to  hear  as  much  as  possible  in  regard  to  every  par 
ticular.  My  chief  motive  in  writing  this  letter  is  not 
to  inform  you  that  I  have  received  a  legacy  or  a  for 
tune  in  any  other  way,  but  to  receive  that  which 
poor  people  are  much  more  certain  of.  On  the  Qth 
of  the  present  month  we  had  a  son  born  which  is  of 
course  your  first  grandson;  he  weighed  7|  pounds 
the  day  after  he  was  born  and  is  a  very  thrifty  fellow. 
Now  I  suppose  you  would  like  to  know  what  your 
first  grandson  looks  like  and  I  must  endeavor  to  tell 
you.  When  Helen  asked  me  first  whom  he  looked  like 


12  JOHN  HAY 

I  said  he  looked  like  John ;  when  Cornelia  was  asked 
whom  he  looked  like  she  answered  like  the  Dr.'s 
brother  John  without  knowing  what  had  been  my 
opinion;  his  eyes  are  quite  black  and  his  head  is 
covered  with  more  hair  than  I  have  usually  seen  [on] 
children  at  3  or  6  months  old,  both  he  and  his  mother 
are  doing  well.  His  name  is  Edward  Leonard  after 
Helen's  deceased  brother.  It  would  have  been  John 
had  it  not  been  for  the  circumstance  [of]  her  broth 
er's  death  who  was  a  great  favourite  in  the  family. 
I  hope  you  are  all  enjoying  health  and  content 
ment  ;  you  may  all  expect  to  have  the  blues  more  or 
less  for  a  while  but  courage  will  overcome  all  difficul 
ties.  I  will  close  my  letter  and  wait  till  I  hear  from 
you  again. 

Your  affectionate  son 

CHARLES  HAY. 

JOHN  HAY 
JEMIMA  HAY 

How  much  a  single  letter  like  that  brings  with  it! 

The  only  other  letter  in  this  earliest  packet  is 
dated,  "Salem  Indiana  Dec  4th  1834 "  and  addressed 
to  "Dear  Father  and  Mother." 

"I  have  of  course  something  to  write,  you  will 
think;  true.  Well,  what  is  it;  nothing  dreadful  of 
course  or  I  would  not  write  it;  well  what  is  it  you  will 
say.  Why  it  is  simply  this  that  on  the  morning  of  the 


BEGINNINGS  13 

2nd  inst  a  stranger  came  to  visit  us;  and  who  was  it? 
Why  he  could  not  tell  his  name  although  he  was 
neither  deaf  blind  nor  dumb;  but  he  has  tarried  with 
us  and  for  convenience  we  have  agreed  to  call  him 
John  Augustus  Hay.  What,  another  boy  you  will 
say.  Well,  be  it  so.  His  weight  with  the  little  trap 
pings  about  was  nine  pounds  and  three  quarters  full 
2  pounds  more  than  the  first  born.  Well  done,  say 
you.  And  both  mother  and  son  are  doing  well  in 
every  way.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  still  in  hopes  that  you  can  let  one  of  the  boys 
come  to  live  with  us.  I  am  not  sanguine  in  prom 
ises  to  myself  or  others  but  I  think  I  could  get  one 
of  them  into  tolerable  good  business  here  before  long 
if  he  would  come.  Clerks  in  stores  are  often  wanted 
and  there  are  few  native  hoosiers  who  are  fitted  either 
by  education  manners  or  habits  for  the  business. 
Of  course  merchants  are  often  disappointed  or  com 
pelled  to  take  these  entirely  unfit  for  the  business. 
Even  a  good  overseer  in  a  factory,  should  their 
feelings  incline  that  way,  is  often  wanted,  and  good 
wages  given.  But  I  will  wait  till  your  next  letter  be 
fore  I  say  more  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Farnham's  chil 
dren  are  still  with  us  and  will  stay  till  spring;  per 
haps  then  they  may  go  to  Boston.  Our  town  is 
healthy  and  business  prosperous  generally. 
"Yours  affectionately." 


14  JOHN   HAY 

The  firstborn  son,  Edward,  lived  only  a  few  years: 
the  second  —  who  was  named  Augustus  Leonard, 
and  not  John  Augustus,  as  the  parents  first  intended 
—  was  the  hero,  in  youth,  and  through  life,  of  John 
Hay,  the  statesman.  When  he  died,  on  November 
12,  1904,  the  younger  John,  then  Secretary  of  State, 
and  nearing  the  end  himself ,  told  his  grief  in  a  noble 
letter  to  President  Roosevelt.  It  can  best  be  placed 
here,  because  it  gives  what,  after  half  a  century,  he 
remembered  as  the  brightest  aspects  of  his  boyhood. 

Nov.  16,  1904. 
DEAR  THEODORE  — 

I  cannot  talk  about  it  —  so  I  will  write  you  a  word. 
My  brother  was  my  first  friend  and  my  best.  I 
owe  him  everything.  He  was  only  four  years  older 
than  me,  but  he  had  a  sense  of  right  and  of  conduct 
which  made  him  seem  much  older.  He  was  always 
my  standard.  He  was  not  so  quick  at  his  books  as  I 
was,  but  far  more  sure.  He  taught  me  my  Latin  and 
Greek  so  that  I  made  better  recitations  than  he  did, 
and  got  higher  marks  —  which  was  a  gross  injustice. 
But  he  took  more  interest  in  my  success  than  in  his 
own.  He  made  many  sacrifices  for  me,  which,  with 
the  selfishness  of  a  boy,  I  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
course.  He  fought  my  battles.  It  was  ill  for  the  big 
boy  whom  he  caught  bullying  me.  Once  I  dreamed 


BEGINNINGS  15 

we  were  Christians  thrown  to  the  beasts  in  the 
Coliseum.  He  stepped  between  me  and  a  lion  and 
whipped  the  great  cat  with  his  fists,  then  seized  me 
and  dragged  me  through  a  subterranean  passage  till 
we  came  out  on  the  Appian  Way.  Years  afterwards 
when  I  went  to  Rome,  I  looked  about  to  see  where 
all  that  had  taken  place.  It  was  as  clear  and  vivid 
as  any  real  action  of  my  life. 

He  was  my  superior  in  every  way  but  one  —  the 
gift  of  expression.  His  scholarship  was  more  exact 
than  mine.  He  had  wonderful  skill  with  his  hands; 
could  make  better  balls,  bats,  kites,  fishing-rods,  etc., 
than  could  be  bought  in  the  shops.  Once  he  gathered 
up  all  the  pamphlets  in  the  house,  and  bound  them 
neatly  though  he  had  never  seen  a  book-bindery. 
He  was  —  as  I  have  been  told  by  those  who  served 
with  him  —  the  best  company  officer  and  the  best 
adjutant  in  the  army.  Yet  he  had  no  luck  in  promo 
tion.  His  rigid  sense  of  duty  forbade  him  to  seek  ad 
vancement,  and  he  sternly  forbade  me  ever  to  men 
tion  his  name  at  headquarters.  I  obeyed  him  because 
I  knew  he  would  have  refused  a  promotion  which 
came  through  the  solicitation  of  his  friends. 

He  was  the  chief  of  my  tribe,  in  birth  as  well  as  in 
mind  and  in  character.  We  were  not  a  handsome 
family,  the  rest  of  us  —  but  he  was  unusually  good- 
looking,  tall  and  straight  and  brave. 


16  JOHN  HAY 

Now  he  has  left  us,  and  I  never  had  a  chance  to 
get  even  with  him  for  all  he  did  for  me  when  we  were 
boys.  My  uncertain  health,  the  weather,  and  other 
futilities  have  even  kept  me  away  from  his  funeral, 
I  feel  remorsefully  unworthy  of  him. 

Yours  affectionately. 

Happy  the  older  brother  who  could  inspire  such 
memories !  happier  still  the  younger,  with  such  a  ca 
pacity  for  hero-worship! 

Of  Hay's  childhood  and  youth  at  Warsaw  there  is 
little  to  record.  He  attended  the  public  school,  taught 
by  a  Mr.  Holmes,  and  joined  in  the  play  of  his  com 
panions.  Great  affection  bound  the  family  together. 
Dr.  Hay  prospered,  according  to  the  measure  of  pros 
perity  of  country  doctors  in  the  West.  Above  all,  both 
he  and  his  wife  saw  to  it  that  their  children  should 
enjoy  every  procurable  means  of  improvement,  and 
the  Doctor  himself  helped  John  in  his  Latin. 

From  our  earliest  glimpses  of  him,  John  Hay  ap 
pears  as  an  imaginative  child.  His  oldest  sister  re 
members  that,  when  he  was  still  a  little  boy,  he  had 
"  the  habit  of  stringing  words  together  into  rhymes." 
His  brother  Charles  tells  this  incident,  which  dates 
back  to  John's  sixth  or  seventh  year.  One  morning 
John  came  and  sat  down  beside  him  on  a  log  in  front 
of  the  new  brick  house  their  father  was  building,  and 


BEGINNINGS  17 

presently  John  said:  "'I  have  seen  the  end  of  the 
world.'  I  asked  him:  'What  did  you  see  there?'  He 
replied:  'Nothing,  only  trees  and  flowers  and  some 
birds.'  Later  on  he  mentioned  this  himself,  and  we 
then  understood  that  it  was  only  the  wild  forest  land 
beyond  the  reservation,  on  which  had  been  built, 
in  1814,  Fort  Edwards  on  the  bank  of  the  Missis 
sippi  River." 

Other  anecdotes  furnished  by  his  brother  Charles 
help  us  to  a  further  acquaintance. 

"When  he  was  a  small  boy,  a  German  of  educa 
tion  called  on  my  father  to  ask  assistance  in  forming 
a  class  for  the  study  of  German.  John  listened  with 
a  great  deal  of  interest  and  whispered  to  his  father, 
'I  would  like  very  much  to  study  German.'  This 
pleased  both  my  father  and  the  German  professor, 
and  John  became  a  student  with  the  others,  who 
were  all  men  grown.  John  was  so  small  that  he  would 
occasionally  fall  asleep  during  the  evening,  but  he 
surprised  them  all  by  showing  he  had  learned  his 
lesson  and  could  recite  equally  well  with  the  best  of 
them  when  awakened." 

The  following  recollection,  like  a  flash  of  lightning 
in  the  night,  reveals  one  of  the  tragic  possibilities  of 
life  on  the  borderland  of  slavery. 

"When  we  were  both  quite  young,"  Mr.  Charles 
Hay  writes,  "he  [John]  told  me  he  was  in  the  base- 


1 8  JOHN  HAY 

ment  of  our  house,  and  he  heard  a  ghost,  which  spoke 
to  him  and  said :  '  Little  Master,  for  the  love  of  God 
bring  me  a  drink  of  water/  John  said  he  was  so 
frightened  he  hurried  upstairs  and  went  to  his  room. 
The  next  day  my  father  told  at  the  table  that  three 
runaway  slaves  had  been  overtaken  by  a  party  of 
officers  from  Missouri  and  the  slaves  had  resisted 
arrest,  and  one  was  captured  and  taken  back,  one  of 
the  other  two  was  fired  upon  and  killed,  and  the 
third  had  been  badly  wounded,  but  escaped,  leaving 
blood  tracks  in  the  wood.  I  saw  my  brother  John 
staring  at  me  across  the  supper  table,  but  saying 
nothing.  After  the  meal,  he  told  his  father  about  the 
voice  he  heard  in  the  basement.  My  father,  John, 
and  I  went  down  to  investigate,  and  on  a  pile  of 
kindling  wood  was  the  appearance  of  some  one  hav 
ing  used  this  for  a  bed ;  but  there  was  a  stain  of  blood 
nearly  eighteen  inches  in  diameter.  This  was  prob 
ably  the  blood  shed  by  the  runaway  slave  who  had 
escaped  capture.  What  became  of  the  slave  after 
ward,  I  never  heard.  Fully  forty  years  afterward  I 
asked  John  if  he  remembered  this  occurrence,  and  he 
replied :  *  I  will  never  forget  it,  and  that  incident  has 
given  me  a  greater  horror  than  anything  I  ever 
heard  or  read  about  slavery."' 

From  the  primary  school,  John,  with  his  older 
brother  Leonard,  was  placed  under  an  Episcopal 


BEGINNINGS  19 

clergyman,  the  Reverend  Stephen  Childs,  who  con 
ducted  a  private  school  at  Warsaw.  There  he  began 
Latin  and  Greek;  and  perhaps  it  was  Mr.  Childs  who 
referred  to  him  as  "  honest  and  efficient," — praise 
which  greatly  pleased  the  boy.  "  I  feel  my  character 
has  been  established  --' honest  and  efficient,' — " 
he  confided  to  Charles:  "this  is  my  pride  for  my 
after  life."  "  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  John  is  progress 
ing  so  well  in  his  study  of  Latin,"  his  brother  Augus 
tus  writes  from  St.  Louis,  on  July  17,  1851,  to  Mr. 
N.  W.  Bliss,  at  Warsaw;  "  but  as  regards  Greek,  I  ex 
pect  he  is  somewhat  *  lazy ' ;  however,  I  hope  he  will 
soon  get  over  that  and  go  ahead."  1  In  1851,  John 
was  sent  to  a  private  academy  at  Pittsfield,  the 
county  seat  of  Pike  County,  a  town  which  emi 
grants  from  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  had  settled  and 
stamped  with  genuine  Yankee  ideals.  In  that  semi 
nary,  kept  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  D.  Thomson,  he 
met  John  George  Nicolay,  a  Bavarian  by  birth,  his 
elder  by  six  years,  who  was  destined  to  have  a  deci 
sive  influence  on  his  career.  "  We  all  remember  John 
Hay  at  that  time,"  one  of  his  boyhood  companions 
wrote  in  1898,  "as  a  red-cheeked,  black-eyed,  sun- 

1  For  this  letter,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Nelson  Thomasson,  of 
Chicago.  He  says  that  Mr.  Bliss  tutored  John  for  Brown  Univer 
sity,  and  subsequently  became  eminent  at  the  Chicago  bar.  Augus 
tus  Hay  seems  in  1851  to  have  been  employed  Jn  an  apothecary's 
shop  in  St.  Louis. 


20  JOHN  HAY 

shiny  boy,  chock-full  of  fun  and  devilment  that  hurt 
nobody.  .  .  .  He  spoke  German  like  a  native,  having 
picked  it  up,  just  as  he  gathered  an  inexhaustible 
repertoire  of  'river  slang*  from  the  Mississippi  River 
steamboatmen,  which  served  its  turn  later  on  in  the 
'  Pike  County  Ballads/  "  x  In  1852,  Hay  went  on  to 
the  college  at  Springfield  —  a  promotion  which  might 
well  seem  to  the  lad  as  the  introduction  to  a  larger 
world.  For  Springfield  was  the  capital  of  Illinois, 
and  when  the  legislature  sat,  the  town  bustled  with 
politicians,  attorneys,  lobbyists,  and  business  men. 
The  boom  in  railroad-building  had  begun.  At  all 
times  visitors  were  coming  and  going  on  legal  or 
judicial  errands.  In  the  streets  you  might  meet  men 
of  more  than  local  reputation:  Senator  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  the  "  Little  Giant/'  who  was  trying,  with 
apparent  success,  to  serve  the  God  of  Freedom  and 
the  Mammon  of  Slavery;  or  gaunt,  lanky  Abraham 
Lincoln,  with  his  backwoods  manner,  and  strange, 
sad  eyes,  and  the  gifts  of  humor  and  direct  speech 
which  already  made  him  a  prominent  figure  through 
out  the  State;  or  Lyman  Trumbull  and  David  Davis, 
leaders  in  Illinois,  whose  eyes  were  turned  to  the 
national  stage  in  Washington. 

For  such  a  quick-witted  youth  as  John  Hay,  a 

1  W.  E.  Norris,  in  the  Pike  County  Democrat;  quoted  in  the  Cen 
tury  Magazine,  N.S.,  vol.  LVI,  p.  449.  Norris's  recollection  of  the 
color  of  Hay's  eyes  is  inaccurate. 


BEGINNINGS  21 

small  capital  like  the  Springfield  of  those  days  was 
more  educative  than  a  great  city  could  be.  A  young 
community,  where  individuals  stand  on  their  own 
merits,  and  society  is  not  yet  stratified  into  classes, 
comes  very  soon  to  form  an  accurate  estimate  of 
character;  and  Springfield  also  laid  open  before  him 
the  machinery  of  a  republic  in  operation.  Presum 
ably,  he  listened  occasionally  to  debates  in  the  legis 
lature,  or  went  to  the  court-house  when  some  sensa 
tional  trial  was  up,  or  applauded  the  anti-slavery 
stump  speakers  during  the  political  campaigns ;  for  he 
had  a  healthy  curiosity  to  see  how  the  world  was 
run,  and  to  watch  those  who  ran  it.  He  must  have 
known  the  celebrities,  at  least  by  sight,  and  he  must 
have  heard  his  uncle  and  grandfather  utter  candid 
opinions  about  natives  and  strangers  alike. 

In  the  college  at  Springfield,  which  was  really  no 
more  than  a  preparatory  school,  Hay  studied  so  well 
that,  by  the  spring  of  1855,  he  began  to  think  of 
going  to  a  university.  His  schoolmates  envied  his 
capacity  for  "  getting  his  lessons  without  appar 
ently  any  study. "  An  unusual  memory  enhanced 
his  innate  brightness.  He  was  "  bookish,"  in  that 
he  devoured  books  for  pleasure,  but  he  was  no 
grind.  Full  of  life  and  spirits,  he  entered  eagerly 
into  the  modest  gayeties  —  the  "  sociables,  picnics, 
and  dances"  —  of  Springfield. 


22  JOHN  HAY 

So  Hay  went  back  to  Warsaw,  his  schooling  over, 
to  discuss  with  his  parents  his  future  career.  As  the 
"scholar  "  of  the  family,  all  agreed  that  he  must  con 
tinue  his  education  at  a  university.  The  New  Eng 
land  tradition  imposed  that,  even  if  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Hay  had  had  other  intentions  for  him.  They  de 
cided  that  he  should  go  to  Brown  University,  at 
Providence,  Rhode  Island,  where  Mrs.  Hay's  father, 
David  Augustus  Leonard,  had  graduated  as  Class 
Orator  in  1792.  His  uncle,  Milton  Hay,  who  had 
paid  for  his  education  during  the  past  four  years, 
promised  to  support  him  through  college,  and  ac 
cordingly,  towards  the  end  of  the  summer,  John  jour 
neyed  eastward  in  order  to  matriculate  at  Brown 
when  the  first  term  of  the  academic  year  began,  on 
Friday,  September  7,  1855.  He  still  lacked  a  month 
of  being  seventeen  years  old. 


CHAPTER  II 

LIFE  AT   BROWN   UNIVERSITY 

THERE  is  a  story  that  John  Hay  planned  to 
enter  Harvard,  as  being  the  oldest,  most  dis 
tinguished,  and  best  equipped  of  American  univer 
sities;  but  that  when  he  stopped  over  at  Providence 
to  visit  Brown,  the  attractions  of  that  institution, 
and  the  recollection  of  his  grandfather  Leonard's 
career  there,  so  impressed  him  that  he  went  no 
farther.  From  a  letter  he  wrote  at  the  time,  however, 
we  can  separate  fact  from  legend. 

BROWN  UNIVERSITY,  September  30,  1855. 

DEAR  FRIENDS  :  — 

As  I  am  now  all  completely  settled  and  arranged 
for  the  term,  I  proceed  to  give  you  notice  of  this  im 
portant  fact  and  to  let  you  know  I  still  am  an  inhabi 
tant  of  earth.  I  had  a  whirling,  hustling  time  on  the 
way  here,  but  at  last  arrived  without  any  accident 
on  Tuesday  evening,  safe  and  sound  in  everything, 
except  my  eyes,  mouth  and  ears  were  full  of  cinders 
and  dust.  Saw  nothing  on  the  way  so  remarkable  as 
the  miserable  soil  of  Michigan  and  a  part  of  Canada 
and  Massachusetts.  To  one  foot  of  soil  there  were 


24  JOHN  HAY 

about  three  feet  of  cobblestones  and  in  the  clacks 
weakly,  consumptive-looking  corn  was  struggling 
for  life.  Such  corn  as  a  sucker  farmer  would  cut 
down  and  hide  for  fear  it  would  hurt  the  reputation 
of  his  farm.  In  Canada  I  noticed  a  great  profusion 
of  bull-headed  Englishmen,  free  negroes,  and  Indian 
turnips. 

I  came  into  Boston  about  four  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon  Tuesday.  Bought  a  mince  pie  for  three  cents 
and  a  cake  for  two,  and  feasted  royally.  Taking  the 
cars  for  Providence,  arrived  there  in  a  couple  of 
hours.  Went  to  a  hotel,  and  after  supper  walked  up 
to  the  college,  found  Billy  Norris  and  moved  my 
traps  up  forthwith.  The  next  morning  was  examined, 
admitted  and  commenced  my  studies,  which  are 
Chemistry,  Rhetoric,  and  Trigonometry.  The  first 
two  are  by  lectures  which  we  are  required  to  take 
down  as  they  are  delivered  and  recite  the  next  day. 
We  also  have  exercises  in  speaking  and  writing 
essays. 

My  room  is  a  comfortable  and  conveniently  fur 
nished  one  on  the  second  floor  of  the  college,  costing 
about  50  dollars.  My  chum  is  a  young  man  from  the 
State  of  New  York,  steady,  studious,  and  good 
scholar,  so  I  stand  a  chance  of  doing  a  good  deal  of 
hard  study  this  winter.  It  is  not  here  as  in  Spring 
field.  Here  I  am  acquainted  with  no  one  in  the  city 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          25 

and  have  no  inducements  to  leave  the  college,  while 
in  Springfield  my  circle  of  acquaintance  was  far 
from  limited,  and  entirely  too  agreeable  for  my  own 
good. 

I  shall  wish  often  this  winter,  that  I  could  light  in 
Springfield  for  a  few  hours  and  then  evaporate,  but 
so  mote  it  not  be,  and  I  do  not  know  whether  I  will 
come  back  to  Illinois  next  summer  or  not.  That  is 
too  far  ahead  to  look  at  present. 

My  best  love  to  all,  Grandpa,  aunts,  uncles,  cou 
sins,  and  cats  and  all  inquiring  friends. 

J.  M.  HAY. 

Tell  Aunt  Deniza  that  while  I  was  passing 
through  Canada  I  looked  for  the  handsome  features 
of  Josiah  Condell  at  every  station,  but,  to  my  great 
regret  saw  them  not. 

Somebody  write  soon  —  soon  —  do  you  hear? 
SOON. 

To  an  imaginative  youth,  come  from  the  mush 
room  communities  of  the  West,  Brown  University, 
founded  nearly  a  century  before,  seemed  venerable; 
and  Providence,  with  about  fifty  thousand  inhabi 
tants  and  a  past  stretching  back  to  1636,  was  both 
ancient  and  robust. 

The  city  ranked  second  in  size  among  those  of 
New  England.  It  possessed  thriving  industries,  rail- 


26  JOHN   HAY 

ways,  and  steamboats,  and  a  general  high  level  of  ma 
terial  well-being.  The  defects  of  industrialism  had 
not  yet  pushed  menacingly  to  the  front ;  nor  had  im 
migrant  labor  swarmed  in,  bringing  its  indigestible 
alien  survivals.  How  uniformly  American  the  pop 
ulation  was,  appears  from  the  fact  that  out  of  the 
fifty-three  churches  in  the  city  only  six  were  Roman 
Catholic.  Providence  alternated  with  Newport  as 
the  seat  of  the  capital  of  Rhode  Island  —  an  honor 
which  added  political  importance  to  her  commercial 
prestige. 

But  not  on  the  material  side  only  was  Providence 
fortunate.  The  place  itself,  which  Roger  Williams  had 
chosen  to  be  the  home  of  the  first  settlement  in  Amer 
ica  dedicated  to  toleration,  was  by  nature  very  beau 
tiful.  Narragansett  Bay,  freshened  by  the  breezes 
of  the  Atlantic,  ended  there  in  a  partly  enclosed  har 
bor  which  divided  the  city;  and  several  small  rivers 
flowed  seaward  through  the  hills  which,  ranged  in  an 
irregular  semicircle,  formed  the  background.  The  resi 
dences  of  the  well-to-do  and  rich  rose  amid  luxuriant 
foliage  along  tiie  slopes  or  on  the  crests.  There  was 
evidently  great  prosperity,  but  little  display.  No 
amount  of  wealth  could  dim  the  luster  of  the  old 
families,  many  of  which  were  themselves  rich ;  and  the 
presence  of  the  college  teachers  served  as  an  intel 
lectual  leaven  for  society  and  possibly  as  a  rebuke 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          27 

to  vulgar  extravagance.  The  well-stocked  Athe 
naeum  Library,  supported  by  private  subscription, 
was  a  favorite  resort;  while  here  and  there  some 
person  had  begun  to  collect  rare  books,  or  paintings, 
or  prints,  or  to  regard  it  as  his  duty  to  contribute 
to  the  expansion  of  the  University. 

In  a  word,  Providence  was  at  that  happy  stage 
when  it  still  preserved  its  individuality,  and  had  not 
become  for  travelers  merely  a  railroad  junction  be 
tween  New  York  and  Boston.  It  displayed  a  lively 
civic  consciousness,  and  it  felt  both  the  buoyancy 
which  belonged  to  communities  then  in  the  heyday 
of  industrial  development,  and  the  sense  of  satis 
faction  which  comes  when  material  prosperity  has 
not  yet  dulled  respect  for  spiritual  and  intellectual 
ideals.  Providence  was  large  enough  to  put  forth 
and  sustain  the  organs  through  which  a  community 
enjoys  in  some  measure  a  varied  civilization;  but 
not  so  large  as  to  lose  its  social  solidarity,  much  less 
its  identity.  Like  Portsmouth,  Worcester,  and  two 
or  three  other  provincial  centers  of  old  New  England, 
it  seemed  a  microcosm  of  many  of  the  New  England 
characteristics. 

Although  a  Baptist  institution  by  origin  and  di 
rection,  Brown  University  adhered  to  that  provision 
of  its  charter  which  forbade  religious  tests  and  de 
clared  that  all  its  members  should  "forever  enjoy 


28  JOHN  HAY 

full,  free,  absolute,  and  uninterrupted  liberty  of  con 
science."  In  1855  the  students  numbered  only  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five,  and  the  faculty  only  nine, 
but  smallness  did  not  mean  lack  of  vitality.  The 
students  came  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  some 
of  the  professors  ranked  among  the  best  of  their 
generation.  With  classes  of  from  thirty-five  to  sixty- 
five  members,  a  student  must  have  been  a  hopeless 
mollusk  who  did  not  know  all  his  classmates,  and, 
indeed,  most  of  the  men  in  the  University.  The  con 
ditions  favored  wide  acquaintanceship,  close  com 
mon  interests,  and  intimate  friendships:  and  be 
tween  the  students  and  some  of  their  teachers 
friendly  relations  sprang  up  outside  the  classroom. 

The  curriculum  provided  by  Brown  aimed  at 
what  used  to  be  called  a  liberal  education.  It  laid 
stress  on  Latin  and  Greek  and  mathematics,  but  it 
recognized  the  French  and  German  classics  and  the 
modern  sciences  —  chemistry,  physiology,  geology, 
and  political  economy  —  which  were  crowding  their 
way  to  the  front  in  spite  of  their  treatment  as  par 
venus  by  the  classicists.  The  term  for  Master  of 
Arts  was  five  years,  for  Bachelor  four  years,  and  for 
Bachelor  of  Philosophy  three  years.  The  last  course, 
designed  for  those  students  "who  are  intended  for 
the  pursuits  of  active  life,"  hoped  to  "confer  a  high 
degree  of  intellectual  culture,  without  the  necessity 

J 

•'",/      V 
I     *    V 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          29 

of  studying  the  Ancient  Languages/' 1  Clearly, 
Brown  University,  like  the  other  American  colleges 
of  that  period,  wished  to  make  "  scholars  and  gentle 
men,"  not  specialists  in  any  narrow  field  of  research, 
or  engineers,  doctors,  or  lawyers.  It  accepted  as 
its  task  the  furnishing  of  those  essentials  without 
which  the  specialist  is  doomed  to  remain  an  unculti 
vated  man. 

John  Hay  took  up  his  quarters  in  Number  19, 
University  Hall,  with  Wallace  W.  Corbett 2  as  room 
mate.  Being  admitted  to  advanced  standing,  he 
escaped  most  of  the  usual  trials  of  a  Freshman.  At 
his  arrival,  he  attracted  attention  by  being  out  of 
style  in  his  clothes  and  appearance:  the  fellows 
dubbed  it  "  Western."  He  wore  his  thick  shock  of 
brown  hair  long,  cut  horizontally  like  a  Roundhead's, 
and  coiled  about  his  ears.  His  features  had  not  taken 
on  their  mature  definiteness:  the  slightly  turned- 
up  nose,  the  pouting  lips,  still  suggested  the  lad ;  but 
his  forehead  was  already  large  and  deep,  and  his 
hazel  eyes  at  once  arrested  attention.  "They  were 
eyes,"  one  of  his  intimates  of  those  years  tells  me, 
"  which  you  could  look  into  for  a  mile,  and  they 
looked  through  and  through  yours."  They  were  the 
eyes  of  the  young  man  who  sees  visions,  of  the  bud- 

1  Brown  University  Catalogue,  1855-56. 

2  From  Bridgewater,  New  York. 


30  JOHN  HAY 

ding  poet  rapt  by  the  beauty  his  imagination  unfolds 
to  him. 

One  other  letter  pertaining  to  Hay's  first  year  in 
college  deserves  to  be  quoted  entire. 

BROWN  UNIVERSITY,  November  28th  [1855] 

MY  DEAR  FRIENDS:  — 

To-morrow  is  Thanksgiving.  We  have  no  lessons 
this  week  and  many  of  the  students  have  gone  home. 
I  thought  that  when  this  time  came  I  would  have 
plenty  of  time  to  catch  up  with  my  correspondence 
and  make  some  excursions  to  the  surrounding  coun 
try.  But  here  half  the  week  is  gone  and  I  have  done 
nothing  at  all.  The  fact  is,  I  am  so  much  occupied 
with  my  studies  that  when  a  few  days  of  release  come 
I  cannot  make  a  rational  use  of  my  liberty.  You 
know  I  entered  the  Junior  Class  behind  the  rest,  and 
consequently  have  several  studies  to  make  up  before 
I  can  be  even  with  them.  And  as  the  prescribed 
studies  are  about  as  much  as  I  can  attend  to,  I  do 
not  know  whether  I  can  finish  the  course,  with  just 
ice,  in  two  years.  I  think  I  can  graduate  in  that  time, 
but  will  not  stand  high,  or  know  as  much  about 
the  studies  as  if  I  had  been  more  leisurely  about 
it.  Again,  if  I  go  through  so  hurriedly,  I  will  have 
little  or  no  time  to  avail  myself  of  the  literary  trea 
sures  of  the  libraries.  This  is  one  of  the  greatest 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          31 

advantages  of  an  Eastern  College  over  a  Western 
one. 

This  matter,  however,  I  leave  for  you  and  Pa  to 
decide ;  but  you  may  be  assured  that  whatever  time 
I  remain  here  I  am  determined  to  show  you  that 
your  generous  kindness  has  not  been  misapplied  or 
ungratefully  received.  I  am  at  present  getting  along 
well  in  my  class.  The  Register  tells  me  that  I  stand 
in  the  first  class  of  honor,  my  average  standing  being 
1 8  in  20.  The  life  here  suits  me  exactly.  The  profes^ 
sors  are  all  men  of  the  greatest  ability,  and  what  is 
more,  perfect  gentlemen.  They  pursue  a  kind  and 
friendly  course  toward  the  students  as  long  as  they 
act  in  a  manner  to  deserve  it,  but  any  violations  of 
the  rules  of  the  institution  are  strictly  punished. 
There  have  been  several  expulsions  and  suspensions 
since  I  came  here. 

I  have  no  acquaintances  out  of  the  college,  con 
sequently  know  very  little  of  the  city.  There  is  not 
much  excitement  here  on  any  occasion,  except 
Thanksgiving  and  Training-Day,  and  then  it  is  a 
quiet  Yankee  excitement  as  much  as  possible  unlike 
the  rough,  hearty  manner  of  the  West. 

I  heard  Oliver  W.  Holmes  deliver  a  poem  here  last 
week,  which  [was]  a  splendid  thing;  also  a  lecture  by 
Professor  Huntingdon.  Thackeray  will  be  here  be 
fore  long  and  I  expect  to  hear  him  lecture^ 


32  JOHN   HAY 

It  is  getting  very  late  and  I  close  this  excuse  for  a 
letter  with  my  best  regards  for  all  the  family  and  all 
my  friends  in  Springfield. 

P.S.  Thursday  morning.  —  I  have  just  received 
and  read  with  pleasure  Aunt  D.'s  and  Cousin  S.'s 
letter.  Augustus  has  only  written  once  to  me  since 
I  have  been  here.  I  am  anxious  to  hear  from  him. 

P. P.S.  Please  remit  at  your  earliest  convenience 
some  of  "the  root  of  all  evil,"  alias,  "tin,"  alias, 
pewter. 

P.  P.  P.S.  Some  one  write  soon  and  I  will  answer 
likewise. 

P. P. P. P.S.  I  will  return  good  for  evil  and  answer 
Cousin  Sarah  on  a  whole  sheet,  instead  of  a  few 
lines  at  the  end  of  this. 

P.P.P.P.P.S.   I  received  a  letter  from  Dad  lately. 

P.P.P.P.P.P.S.  That  is  all. 

Yours  truly, 

J.  M.  HAY. 

Hay's  family  saw  the  wisdom  of  not  forcing  him 
to  rush  through  his  college  education  in  two  years; 
and  as  the  generous  uncle  pledged  the  necessary 

r\ 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          33 

support,  he  soon  settled  into  the  Class  of  1858  as  a 
Sophomore,  with  leisure  to  read  and  also  to  play, 
as  fancy  dictated. 

If  some  of  the  "intellectual  bullies "  were  inclined 
at  first  —  as  a  contemporary  reports  —  to  heckle  the 
awkward  Westerner,  they  soon  learned  that  they 
could  neither  intimidate  him  nor  rouse  his  anger,  and 
that  he  was  quite  their  match  in  wit.  Good-natured 
by  temperament,  he  held  himself  somewhat  re 
served  except  with  those  whom  he  knew  well.  His 
intimates  remembered  his  flashes  of  fun,  his  cozy 
friendliness,  his  brilliance  as  a  talker,  his  moments 
of  exhilaration  followed  by  fits  of  depression,  which 
recurred  throughout  his  life.  That  he  had  little 
money  to  spend,  did  not  shut  him  out  from  comrade 
ship  ;  nor  did  his  studiousness,  which  was  that  of  the 
dilettante  and  not  that  of  the  pedant.  Without  any 
ambition  to  head  the  rank  list,  he  stood  well  in 
his  classes.  The  person  who  knew  him  best  in  those 
days  says  that  he  was  "very  humble."  Perhaps  he 
was  already  contrasting  his  unfledged  talents  with 
the  soaring  achievements  of  the  masters  whom  he 
worshiped.  The  college  library,  where  he  browsed 
at  will,  "meant  more  to  him  as  an  undergraduate 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  college."  And  no  wonder,  for 
the  college  instruction,  even  in  the  elective  courses, 
was  conducted  wholly  by  recitation,  and  what  that 


34  JOHN   HAY 

was  can  be  inferred  from  this  reminiscence  fur 
nished  me  by  Hay's  classmate,  the  Reverend  J.  H. 
Gilmore :  - 

"The  method  of  studying  English  literature  which 
existed  at  Brown  fifty -odd  years  ago  was  not  one 
which  tended  to  stimulate  literary  enthusiasm.  We 
had  six  pages  of  advance,  six  pages  of  immediate 
review,  and  six  pages  of  back  review  in  Spalding's 
'English  Literature/  to  be  recited  every  Friday 
afternoon  throughout  the  Junior  year;  and  there 
you  were.  Why,  one  of  my  classmates,  who  gradu 
ated  summa  cum  laude,  told  me  that  he  had  never 
read  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  and  that  he  had 
'never  consciously  read  a  line  of  Tennyson's/  al 
though  'In  Memoriam'  was  published  in  1850." 

To  a  youth  who  was  feeding  his  imagination  on 
Shelley,  those  weekly  exercises  in  Spalding's  tread 
mill  could  not  have  been  inspiring.  At  hast  one  of 
his  teachers,  however,  Professor  James  B.  Angell,  — 
subsequently,  President  of  the  University  of  Michi 
gan, --both  stirred  Hay's  enthusiasm  and  recog 
nized  his  ability.  They  read  together  several  of  the 
great  French  and  German  masterpieces,  and  Hay 
proved  the  best  translator  Dr.  Angell  ever  had  in 
his  classes.  Marks  give  only  an  uncertain  indication 
of  capacity,  especially  when  we  do  not  know  the 
interaction  of  teacher  and  pupil  which  determines 


LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY          35 

marks;  but  it  is  odd  to  discover  that  Hay  stood 
highest  in  political  economy  (under  Professor  Wil 
liam  Gammell),  which  he  elected  during  his  last 
half-year  in  college.  As  his  standing  improved  year 
by  year,  we  infer  that  his  growing  zeal  in  interests 
outside  the  classroom  did  not  cause  him  to  scamp 
his  studies.1 

But  from  first  to  last  Hay  was  evidently  one  of 
those  youths  whose  college  career  cannot  be  summed 
up  by  marks.  His  fellows  quickly  discovered  his  un 
usual  qualities  of  wit  and  good-nature  and  thought- 
fulness.  At  the  first  Freshman  dinner,  the  toast- 
master,  after  calling  on  everybody  who  wished  to 
speak,  summoned  Hay  to  his  feet.  "  We  don't  want 
anything  dry,"  a  youth  shouted.  "  Hay  that  is  green 
can  never  be  dry/7  the  unfashionable  stranger  from 
Illinois  retorted ;  and  then  he  poured  out  a  sparkling 
speech,  which  delighted  his  enthusiastic  hearers  and 
made  his  reputation.  How  suddenly  those  college 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  Registrar  of  Brown  University  for  the  follow 
ing  record  of  Hay's  standing.  —  1855-56.  First  semester.  Chemistry, 
19.50;  mathematics,  17.01;  rhetoric,  18.65.  Second  semester.  3  Latin, 
19.37;  physics,  19.21;  rhetoric,  18.79;  3  Greek,  18.90.  —  1856-57. 
First  semester.  French,  19.00;  German,  19.32;  moral  philosophy, 
14.93;  declamations,  19.00.  Second  semester.  Moral  philosophy,  17.25; 
French,  19.12;  German,  19.83.  —  1857-58.  First  semester.  History, 
19.83;  intellectual  philosophy,  19.45.  Second  semester.  History, 
19.64;  moral  philosophy,  19.35,  political  economy,  19.95.  These  are 
half-yearly  averages,  based  on  a  possible  total  of  20  for  each  study. 
Hay's  rank  for  the  three  years  admitted  him  to  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Fraternity. 


36  JOHN   HAY 

reputations  shoot  up  under  the  influence  of  song  and 
wine  and  comradeship! 

That  was  the  era  when  Greek  letter  fraternities 
ran  riot  in  American  colleges.  Among  undergradu 
ates  the  rage  for  secret  societies  seems  to  be  as  in 
curable  as  is  falling  in  love.  Who  does  not  remember 
the  preliminary  suspense,  the  weeks  or  months  in 
which  you  wondered  whether  you  would  be  chosen, 
and,  if  chosen,  by  which  fraternity?  You  heard  that 
Brown  "was  sure"  of  the  A. B.C.,  that  Green  had 
been  approached  by  the  D.E.F.,  that  Gray's  grand 
father  had  been  president  of  the  X.Y.Z.,  that  White 
had  a  cousin  in  the  Tiger's  Claw  or  the  Shark's  Skull. 
Although  you  lacked  any  similar  favoring  connec 
tion,  yet  you  could  not  help  feeling  that  you  were 
quite  as  desirable  as  Brown  or  Green  or  Gray.  At 
last  an  emissary  came  to  sound  you  for  the  X.Y.Z. 
Genuinely  surprised,  you  accepted  with  fervor, 
while  protesting  that  you  knew  you  were  not  worthy 
of  so  great  an  honor. 

Then  followed  the  preparations  for  your  initiation 
and  your  dread  lest  you  might  flinch  during  the  ter 
rible  ordeal;  until  you  comforted  yourself  by  the  re 
flection  that  if  Timkins,  notoriously  puny  of  body 
and  feeble  of  will,  had  gone  through,  you  might  hope 
to  do  likewise.  Of  the  initiation  itself,  --the  fright 
ful  tortures,  the  harrowing  tests  of  endurance,  the 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          37 

oaths  more  awful  than  those  uttered  in  the  court 
room  or  at  the  altar,  and  the  sense  of  omniscience 
which  permeated  you  when  you  heard  the  meaning 
of  the  mystic  Greek  letters,  —  these  are  matters 
never  to  be  revealed  to  the  profane.  How  joyfully 
you  called  each  fellow  member  "  Brother,"  and  how 
suddenly  you  discovered  all  sorts  of  attractions  in 
even  the  most  commonplace  of  them!  What  a  thrill 
passed  through  you  when  you  tried  the  grip  on  an 
upper  classman,  and  he  responded,  and  you  fell  to 
exchanging  confidences  as  if  you  had  been  babies 
together!  However  modest  you  were,  you  could  not 
doubt  that  the  whole  college  must  see  at  a  glance 
that  a  great  change  had  been  wrought  in  you  over 
night,  and  that,  although  you  wore  no  visible  halo, 
you  were  indubitably  one  of  the  elect. 

Looking  backward,  after  many  years,  you  smile 
at  the  exaggerations  of  that  experience;  but  your 
smile  is  wistful  and  tender,  rather  than  satirical,  for 
you  recognize  that  the  secret  society  was  but  one  of 
the  forms  of  glamour  by  which  you  were  led  from 
adolescence  into  manhood.  The  glamour  passes;  the 
sweetness  of  the  memory  of  youth  itself  abides.  And 
you  reserve  your  sarcasm  for  those  silly  dotards  who 
in  after  life  hold  their  society  pins  more  sacred  than 
wife  and  children,  or  leave  the  room  if  any  out 
sider  whispers  the  name  of  their  society.  The  best  of 


38  JOHN  HAY 

fraternities  have  serious  drawbacks,  but  they  have 
also  compensating  positive  benefits,  the  chief  being 
opportunity  for  friendship. 

Coming  to  Brown  as  a  stranger,  John  Hay  had  not 
been  pledged  to  any  of  the  competing  fraternities. 
But  we  learn  that  "his  sterling  worth"  soon  gave 
the  "intellectual  bullies"  pause.  "Nor  had  he  been 
long  matriculated,"  says  his  fraternal  biographer, 
"before  Brothers  Burdge  and  Simons,  looking  deeper 
into  character,  saw  in  him  the  future  development 
of  a  strong  nature."  Accordingly,  those  discerning 
brothers  "made  it  their  study  to  place  before  Hay 
the  great  advantages  over  all  other  societies  which 
were  to  be  found  under  the  protecting  aegis  of  the 
Theta  Delta  Chi  Fraternity." 

Hay  was  persuaded,  and  was  initiated  at  a  cere 
mony  of  extraordinary  solemnity,  which  Brothers 
French  and  Taylor  attended  from  Tufts  College, 
and  Brother  Alexander  L.  Holley  ("  who  had  already 
become  famous"!)  from  New  York.  A  right  royal 
Theta  Delta  supper  followed  at  the  "  What-Cheer," 
where  Pond  and  French  made  their  happiest 
speeches,  —  Depew  "never  equaled  them,"  —  and 
Brother  Hay  responded  to  everybody's  satisfaction. 

"The  next  morning,"  continues  Brother  Stone, 
the  chronicler,  "imagine  the  horror  (yes,  that  word 
exactly  expresses  it)  of  the  members  of  the  rival 


LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY          39 

fraternities  when  they  saw  Hay  come  into  chapel, 
escorted  by  Burdge  and  myself,  wearing  the  Shield 
with  the  emblematical  letters  ®AX,  emblazoned  on 
its  sable  field !  Notwithstanding  the  awful  presence 
of  President  Wayland  and  the  august  professors, 
an  universal  and  audible  howl  went  up  from  the  op 
position,  which  evoked  a  corresponding  cheer  from 
our  side.  The  triumph  was  complete;  and  Dr.  Way- 
land,  pushing  his  spectacles  up  from  his  nose  onto 
his  brow,  was  constrained  to  stand  some  moments 
till  the  commotion  had  subsided,  before  offering  up 
his  interrupted  orisons."  1 

So  vividly,  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  century,  did  the 
recollection  of  John  Hay's  capture  by  Theta  Delta 
Chi  lie  in  the  memory  of  Brother  Stone  —  an  ••in 
dication  of  the  importance  attached  by  undergrad 
uates  to  their  societies  and  clubs!  Hay  proved 
himself  a  loyal  Theta  Delt.  His  wit  enlivened  the 
meetings  and  suppers;  he  wrote  verses  abundantly, 
—  one  of  his  poems  being  sung  at  every  reunion;2 

1  W.  L.  Stone  in  The  Shield,  xxi,  319-20  (September,  1905) ;  organ 
of  the  Theta  Delta  Chi  Fraternity. 

2  The  final  stanza  of  this  is:  — 

"And  if,  perchance,  one  sadder  line 

May  mingle  with  the  strain, 
For  those,  the  lost,  whose  loving  voice 

We  ne'er  shall  hear  again; 
Let  this  rejoice  the  heavy  heart, 

And  light  the  dimming  eye; 
The  Gates  of  Eden  are  not  closed 

To  Theta  Delta  Chi!" 


40  JOHN   HAY 

and  he  formed  lifelong  associations  with  many  of  the 
brothers.  A  few  years  later,  while  serving  as  Secre 
tary  to  President  Lincoln,  he  saved  from  undeserved 
execution  two  Theta  Delts;  and  afterwards,  when 
he  had  risen  to  a  position  of  great  influence,  he  never 
forgot  the  claims  of  members  of  his  fraternity. 

But  Johnny  Hay  —  as  his  intimates  called  him  — 
was  too  healthy-minded  to  be  puffed  up  or  spoiled 
even  by  the  honor  of  election  to  Theta  Delta  Chi. 
During  his  first  winter  vacation,  he  writes  his  moth 
er:  "I  am  enjoying  myself  very  well  here,  reading 
the  newspapers,  etc.,  writing  a  batch  of  letters,  and 
loafing  around  in  the  city  reading-rooms,  varying 
these  amusements  with  a  quiet  game  of  dominoes 
with  Ed  Morris.1  .  .  .  Certainly  one  of  the  greatest 
advantages  of  an  Eastern  college  is  the  society  into 
which  a  student  is  thrown,  We  live  in  a  perfectly 
independent  way,  choose  our  own  associates  and  our 
own  mode  of  life,  and  if  we  belong  to  a  secret  society 
we  have  never  any  need  of  friends.  Our  society  em 
braces  many  whom  I  shall  be  proud  to  know  in  after 
life,  and  whose  friendship  I  now  consider  a  '  feather 
in  my  cap/"  2 

1  Edgar  R.  Morris,  of  Quincy,  Illinois. 

2  Hay  to  his  mother,  February  6,  1856.    This  seems  to  be  one 
of  the  few  early  letters  of  Hay  to  his  family  that  have  not  been 
destroyed.    Not  long  before  his  death  he  burned  all  his  home  letters 
that  he  could  find. 


LIFE  AT   BROWN   UNIVERSITY          41 

The  more  we  see  of  him  at  Brown,  the  more  we 
find  him  normally  sensible,  —  if,  indeed,  to  be  sen 
sible  be  normal.  Possessing  a  good  mind,  with  a 
natural  hunger  for  literature,  and  especially  for 
poetry,  he  read  with  zest;  having  also  the  desire  to 
write,  he  used  his  pen  freely,  joyously,  and  with  such 
success  that  he  earned  the  reputation  of  being  the 
best  undergraduate  writer  in  college.  Over  his  ad 
miring  intimates  his  conversation  cast  a  spell.  With 
uncritical  but  pardonable  enthusiasm  they  hailed 
him  as  "a  young  Dr.  Johnson  without  his  boorish- 
ness,  or  a  Dr.  Goldsmith  without  his  frivolity."  But 
while  he  inclined  to  intellectual  pursuits,  and  per 
haps  got  his  keenest  pleasure  from  them,  he  took 
part  gladly,  as  has  been  hinted  here,  in  undergrad 
uate  fun. 

'"In  those  days,  all  text  was  memorized,'  Mr. 
Norris  relates ;  '  and  it  was  the  general  opinion  that 
Hay  put  his  book  under  his  pillow  and  had  the  con 
tents  thereof  absorbed  and  digested  by  morning,  for 
he  was  never  seen  "  digging,"  or  doing  any  other  act  or 
thing  that  could  be  construed  into  hard  study.  His 
quick  perception,  ready  grasp  of  an  idea  and  won 
derfully  retentive  memory,  made  a  mere  pastime  of 
study.  His  enthusiasm  was  boundless,  and  his  love 
for  and  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  in  nature  and 
in  art  was  acutely  developed.  If  he  was  smitten  with 


42  JOHN  HAY 

the  charms  of  a  pretty  girl,  he  raved  and  walked  the 
room  pouring  out  his  sentiment  in  a  flood  of  furious 
eloquence.  He  would  apostrophize  a  beautiful  sun 
set  till  the  last  glow  had  expired.  I  remember  being 
called  out  of  bed  by  him  one  night  to  witness  a 
beautiful  display  of  Northern  Lights.  The  display 
was  gorgeous,  but  the  night  was  cold,  and  after 
stating  my  view  of  the  situation,  I  retired  to  my 
room  leaving  him  with  chattering  teeth  and  eloquent 
language  addressing  Aurora  B.'  "  l 

His  college  life  meant  more,  however,  than  could 
be  reckoned  by  marks  in  the  classroom,  or  by  his 
chats  and  frolics  with  his  companions.  Even  his  ad 
mission  to  the  fraternity,  which  may  have  seemed, 
at  the  time,  to  be  the  turning-point  in  his  career,  was 
unimportant  compared  with  some  of  the  deeper 
stirrings  within  him  —  signs  not  merely  of  growth, 
but  of  capacities  in  himself  which  he  had  hardly  sus 
pected.  Residence  in  an  old  community  was  quietly 
transforming  him.  If  he  could  have  analyzed  the 
process  he  would  have  found  that  those  traits  of  the 
Westerner,  which  his  comrades  supposed  to  be  of  his 
very  essence,  were,  on  the  contrary,  mere  accidents. 
Like  the  noble's  child  who,  stolen  by  gypsies  and 
forced  to  lead  their  squalid  life,  on  being  restored 

1  A.  S.  Chapman,  "The  Boyhood  of  John  Hay,"  Century  Maga 
zine,  LVI,  450. 


LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY          43 

in  manhood  to  his  own  people,  quickly  falls  into  their 
ways,  so  John  Hay  returned  in  Providence  to  the 
culture  which  he  had  vaguely  craved  all  his  days. 
Civilization  in  the  making,  as  he  saw  it  in  Illinois, 
did  not  satisfy  his  instinctive  longing  for  the  finished 
product.  Providence,  though  no  Edinburgh  or  Flor 
ence  or  Athens,  spoke  to  him  of  culture.  Providence 
looked  toward  Europe  and  the  East,  the  cradle  and 
home  of  the  ideals  of  the  white  man's  race.  Warsaw, 
Illinois,  faced  westward,  upon  the  wilderness,  which 
the  imaginative  little  boy  had  mistaken  for  the  end 
of  the  world. 

In  Providence  there  were  some  men  and  more 
women  who  not  only  understood  what  you  meant  by 
learning  and  literature  and  arts  and  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  but  who  actually  had  time  to  cherish  them, 
and  believed  that  neither  making  money  nor  any 
other  material  concern  could  equal  them  in  impor 
tance.  Outside  of  the  academic  circle,  Providence 
boasted  of  a  literary  set,  which  encouraged  lectures, 
welcomed  passing  authors,  discussed  the  latest  and 
read  the  standard  books,  and  created  that  intangible 
thing  which  artists  of  all  kinds  hanker  after  —  an 
atmosphere. 

"In  the  summer  of  1845,  while  passing  through 
Providence,  Poe  had  seen  a  lady  among  the  roses 
of  her  garden  in  the  moonlight.  He  had  learned  that 


44  JOHN  HAY 

she  was  a  poetess  —  Mrs.  Sarah  Helen  Whitman" ;  l 
and  ten  years  later,  when  Hay  went  to  Brown,  this 
poetess  held  a  place  apart,  both  on  account  of  her 
own  productions  and  of  her  brief  engagement  to  Poe. 
Although  Mrs.  Whitman,  well  on  toward  the  middle 
fifties,  might  seem  rather  a  dowager-like  muse,  she 
still  kept  alive  the  embers  of  passion,  and  she  had  the 
art  of  impressing  those  who  knew  her  as  an  unusual 
person.  It  certainly  was  not  genius,  it  might  well  be 
talent,  that  distinguished  her.  Handsome  in  youth, 
she  kept  her  good  looks  into  old  age,  and  she  let  slip 
no  means  which  might  heighten  the  indefinable  qual 
ity  that  attracted  even  strangers  to  her.  She  dressed 
always  in  white,  and  she  appears  to  have  sprinkled 
her  garments  with  ether,  instead  of  cologne  or  other 
perfume,  which  shed  a  fragrance  suggestive  of  a 
neurotic  condition  in  the  wearer. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  college  days,  Hay  was 
privileged  to  know  Mrs.  Whitman.  She  evidently 
appreciated  his  winning  nature  and  lively  wit,  and 
looked  very  kindly  upon  his  verses:  but  she  was  not 
an  injudicious  flatterer.  She  criticized  frankly,  and 
he  accepted  the  criticism  gratefully;  for  he  was 
"very  humble"  in  the  presence  of  those  whom  he 
regarded  as  his  superiors;  and  Mrs.  Whitman's  inter 
est  seemed  to  him  an  almost  incredible  favor.  In  his 

1  G.  E.  Woodberry,  Edgar  Allan  Poe  (Boston,  1909),  n,  265. 


LIFE  AT   BROWN   UNIVERSITY  45 

letters  to  her  after  quitting  Brown,  he  addressed  her 
simply,  "  Mrs.  Whitman,"  as  if  he  dreaded  to  appear 
familiar  or  presuming.  His  reverence  for  her  was 
unfeigned.  "  If  I  had  had  the  honor  of  knowing  you 
earlier,"  he  writes,  "I  would  have  had  less  to  regret 
in  my  collegiate  course."  l 

The  so-called  romance  of  Mrs.  Whitman's  middle 
life  —  her  bizarre  relation  with  poor  Poe,  already 
ruined  by  drink  and  laudanum  —  added  to  her  im- 
pressiveness;  but  Hay  had  probably  read  Poe's 
poems  and  tales  before  he  met  her.  Among  his  un 
dergraduate  pieces  several  show  Poe's  influence.  The 
following  stanzas,  unpublished  so  far  as  I  know, 
might  easily  pass  for  one  of  Poe's  pot-boilers:  — 

"  In  a  glimmering  Kingdom  of  woe 

On  a  plain  demon-haunted  I  lie, 
And  the  specters  that  glide  to  and  fro 
With  their  wings  blot  the  joy  of  the  sky. 

"Let  thy  spirit  shed  o'er  me  the  light 

That  it  gained  from  the  Father  above, 
And  my  soul  shall  come  out  of  the  night 
To  the  sunshine  of  Infinite  Love."  2 

His  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Whitman,  the  "  priest 
ess"  at  whose  feet  he  sat,  came  at  the  end  of  Hay's 
Senior  year.  Almost  at  the  same  time  he  knew  Nora 

1  From  an  unpublished  letter  in  Brown  University  Library. 

2  MS.  in  Brown  University  Library. 


46  JOHN   HAY 

Perry,  a  young  poetess  who  had  achieved  local  fame 
when  the  recently  established  Atlantic  Monthly 
printed  two  or  three  of  her  poems.  She,  too,  was 
drawn  to  the  sympathetic  youth,  with  his  sparkling 
gifts.  Although  she  was  only  five  or  six  years  his 
elder,  he  treated  her  with  almost  pathetic  deference. 
"The  very  fact  of  your  writing  to  me,"  he  says, 
in  reply  to  a  letter  from  her,  "  proved  that  you  had 
an  opinion  of  my  powers  which  I  might  vainly  strive 
to  justify;  and  when  I  read  the  poems  which  you 
added,  I  was  still  more  embarrassed  in  view  of  my 
situation.  I  despair  of  ever  carrying  on  a  correspond 
ence  on  terms  in  any  degree  approaching  equality 
with  one  whose  mental  plane  is  so  far  above  my 


own." 


We  hear  of  a  Dr.  Helme  and  other  congenial  mem 
bers  of  the  literary  coterie,  and  of  that  erratic  Celt, 
and  future  eulogist  of  Walt  Whitman,  William  Doug 
las  O'Connor,  with  whom  Hay  had  cordial  relations. 
Among  his  teachers,  he  found  a  hospitable  welcome 
from  Professor  Angell,  and  when  the  students  pre 
sented  a  cradle  to  the  professor's  first-born  child, 
Hay  wrote  some  lively  verses,  loaded  with  puns, 
which  they  sang  to  the  tune  of  "Cocachelunk"  and 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Angells.  Brown  had  two 
literary  societies,  of  which  the  Philermenian  elected 
1  Poet  in  Exile,  p.  17;  October  12,  1858. 


LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY          47 

Hay  its  vice-president.  He  was  an  editor  of  the 
Brown  Paper,  an  undergraduate  journal,  and  to 
its  first  number  (November,  1857)  he  contributed 
"Sa!  Sa!"  a  parody  on  Emerson's  "Brahma,"  be 
ginning:— 

?"If  the  hazed  Freshman  thinks  he's  hazed, 
And  that  he's  passed  his  hazing  pain; 
He's  sold  —  too  high  his  hopes  are  raised, 
The  Soph 'more  goes  but  comes  again." 

Hay's  parody,  like  many  another,  tickled  brains 
that  had  never  quite  understood  the  original. 

His  classmate,  Gilmore,  relates  an  incident  which 
illustrates  Hay's  inquiring  disposition :  - 

"On  one  occasion,  at  least,  his  enthusiasm  for 
literature  was  carried  to  excess.  'The  Hasheesh- 
Eater'  had  recently  appeared  (1857);  and  Johnny 
must  needs  experiment  with  hasheesh  a  little,  and 
see  if  it  was  such  a  marvelous  stimulant  to  the  im 
agination  as  Fitzhugh  Ludlow  affirmed.  'The  night 
when  Johnny  Hay  took  hasheesh '  marked  an  epoch 
for  the  dwellers  in  Hope  College.  It's  fifty-six  years 
ago;  but  I  remember  it  well." 

During  his  Junior  and  Senior  years,  Hay  roomed 
at  44  Hope  College.  His  life  with  his  cronies  grew 
more  delightful  term  by  term.  His  class  recognized 
his  ability  by  electing  him  Class  Poet.  Every  one 
thought  of  him  as  of  a  fellow  who  would  neither  do 


48  JOHN  HAY 

a  mean  act  nor  tolerate  it.  As  an  indication  of  the 
happy  memory  his  college  contemporaries  had  of  his 
chivalry,  the  story  went  the  rounds,  not  long  before 
he  died,  that  at  Brown  he  had  rescued  a  Freshman 
named  Gordon  who  was  being  smoked  out  by  Sopho 
mores.  On  being  appealed  to  for  the  facts,  Hay,  then 
Secretary  of  State,  replied  that  he  did  n't  remember. 
"But,"  he  added  playfully,  "my  recollections  of 
everything  in  those  far-off  days  is  dim,  and  heroism 
was  my  daily  habit.  I  could  n't  sleep  nights  if  I 
had  n't  saved  somebody's  life.  Now  I  only  save  a 
nation  now  and  then."  l 

So  the  last  months  of  his  college  life  glided  happily 
by.  Secure  in  his  classmates'  good-will  and  esteem, 
he  enjoyed  also  the  deeper  satisfaction  of  being  ad 
mitted  to  the  group  of  literary  men  and  women  who 
lisped  the  language  of  his  ideals.  The  only  cloud 
that  hung  over  him  was  the  realization  that  he  must 
soon  renounce  all  this  and  go  back  to  the  West, 
which  he  had  learned  to  loathe.  There  are  also  hints 
of  a  love-affair  which  made  parting  still  harder. 

On  Class  Day,  June  10,  1858,  he  read  his  poem  at 
Manning  Hall  to  an  audience  which  was  enchanted 
by  it.  "His  theme,"  says  one  reporter,  "was  'The 
Power  of  Song,'  [and]  was  marked  by  a  fertility  of 
conception,  a  depth  of  sensibility,  and  a  power  of 

1  Brown  Monthly,  February,  1906;  pp.  141-42. 


JOHN    HAY   WHEN   A    STUDENT   AT    BROWN    UNIVERSITY 


LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY          49 

poetic  expression,  which  we  have  rarely  heard 
equaled,  and  never  surpassed,  at  any  of  our  literary 
anniversaries.  It  was  agreeably  enlivened  by  pas 
sages  of  keen  wit  and  of  pleasing  humor,  and  was, 
in  every  respect,  a  most  scholarly  and  brilliant  per 
formance."  According  to  another  hearer,  "  the  effort 
caused  tears  and  deafening  applause  to  succeed  each 
other  during  its  delivery."  The  recollection  of  Hay's 
triumph  lived  on,  and  to-day  it  has  become  a  tradi 
tion  at  Brown  that  no  class  poem  ever  matched  his. 
Old  men  can  still  recite  for  you  its  concluding  lines, 
which  he  cast  in  a  stately  and  sonorous  metre:  - 

i  "Where'er  afar  the  beck  of  fate  shall  call  us, 

'Mid  winter's  boreal  chill  or  summer's  blaze, 
Fond  memory's  chain  of  flowers  shall  still  enthrall  us, 

Wreathed  by  the  spirits  of  these  vanished  days: 
Our  hearts  shall  bear  them  safe  through  life's  commotion ; 

Their  fading  gleam  shall  light  us  to  our  graves ; 
As  in  the  shell  the  memories  of  ocean 

Murmur  forever  of  the  sounding  waves." 

That  evening  there  was  a  Class  Supper  at  Hum 
phrey's;  then,  packing  and  good-byes.  Hay  always 
kept  a  loyal  and  even  affectionate  regard  for  his 
classmates,  but  he  came  back  only  once  to  their  re 
unions,  and  many  years  elapsed  before  he  revisited 
Brown.  He  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws 
in  I897.1  For  the  centennial  of  the  University  in 

1  His  degree  at  graduation  was  Master  of  Arts. 


50  JOHN  HAY 

1864  he  wrote  the  ode,  but  his  duties  in  Washington 
prevented  him  from  reading  it  in  person.  He  never 
ceased  to  be  grateful  to  his  alma  mater  for  the  win 
dows  on  life  she  had  opened  to  him ;  and  his  friend 
ship  for  his  classmates,  although  he  saw  them  very 
seldom,  did  not  die  out.  Toward  the  end  of  his  life, 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Henry  Adams:  "Why  don't  you 
go  to  your  class  anniversaries  and  get  lionized  and 
handshook  and  interviewed  ?  I  know  why  /  don't  — 
because  I  am  an  ass  and  a  degenere,  whose  initia 
tive  is  dead." 

A  few  months  later,  looking  back  upon  the  three 
years  he  spent  there,  he  wrote  Miss  Nora  Perry :  — 

"If  you  loved  Providence  as  I  do,  you  would  con 
gratulate  yourself  hourly  upon  your  lot.  I  turn  my 
eyes  Eastward,  like  an  Islamite,  when  I  feel  prayer 
ful.  The  city  of  Wayland  and  Williams,  that  smiles 
upon  its  beauty  glassed  in  the  still  mirror  of  the  Nar- 
ragansett  waves,  is  shrined  in  my  memory  as  a  far- 
off,  mystical  Eden,  where  the  women  were  lovely 
and  spirituelle,  and  the  men  were  jolly  and  brave; 
where  I  used  to  haunt  the  rooms  of  the  Athenaeum, 
made  holy  by  the  presence  of  the  royal  dead ;  where 
I  used  to  pay  furtive  visits  to  Forbes'  forbidden  mys 
teries  (peace  to  its  ashes!);  where  I  used  to  eat 
Hasheesh  and  dream  dreams.  My  life  will  not  be 
utterly  desolate  while  memory  is  left  me,  and  while 


LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY          51 

I  may  recall  the  free  pleasures  of  the  student- time ; 
pleasures  in  which  there  was  no  taint  of  selfishness 
commingled,  and  which  lost  half  their  sin  in  losing 
all  their  grossness.  Day  is  not  more  different  from 
night  than  they  were  from  the  wild  excesses  of  the 
youth  of  this  barbarous  West."  l 

1  Poet  in  Exile,  pp.  22-23. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   POET   IN  EXILE 

JOHN  HAY  did  not  linger  in  Providence  to  re 
ceive  his  diploma  at  the  Brown  Commencement, 
which  came  in  September,  but  he  journeyed  home 
by  slow  stages,  stopping  here  and  there  to  pay 
visits.  That  he  had  made  an  unusual  impression  on 
his  college  mates  and  teachers  cannot  be  questioned, 
although  a  biographer  must  be  on  his  guard  against 
the  natural  tendency  to  magnification  which  the 
contemporaries  of  an  illustrious  man  fall  into  when 
they  look  back.  Hay's  Class  Poem  and  enough  of 
his  other  verses  remain  to  show  that  he  fairly  earned 
his  distinction  at  Brown;  and,  although  we  cannot 
fail  to  regret  that  he  destroyed  his  youthful  letters 
home,  we  can  surmise  from  other  fragments  and 
hints  how  his  inner  life  was  unfolding.  He  returned 
to  Warsaw  transformed  from  an  expectant  lad  into 
a  young  man  wrho  believed  that  he  had  discovered 
his  mission.  Unfortunately  for  his  peace  of  mindr 
that  mission  was  as  unadapted  to  his  surroundings 
as  a  "  rainbow  to  Wall  Street." 

Wanting  to  be  a  poet  and  a  man  of  letters,  Hay 
felt  within  himself  the  capacity  therefor;  and  he 


THE   POET   IN   EXILE  53 

dreamed  that  laurels  awaited  him.  Whether  they 
did  or  not,  he  knew  that  any  other  achievement 
would  be  empty  compared  with  the  satisfaction  of 
serving  the  Muse.  But  although  Illinois  was  pouring 
millions  into  the  lap  of  many  a  business  man  or  "  rail 
road  magnate,"  it  would  not  then  have  furnished  a 
daily  mess  of  porridge  to  either  a  Milton  or  a  Byron. 

Hay's  family  welcomed  him  with  joyful  pride;  yet 
even  their  affection  could  not  supply  what  his  en 
kindled  nature  now  craved.  His  thoughts  were  fixed 
continually  on  the  "  good-bye  lande"  he  had  left. 
The  change  was  too  sudden,  the  contrast  too  bitter. 
He  felt  that  he  had  been  transplanted  from  a  con 
genial  soil  and  climate,  to  a  land  where  winds  were 
bleak  and  the  earth  was  poor.  He  saw  no  hope  for 
the  future.  To  the  youth  capable  of  lively  emotions, 
it  seems  inevitable  that  to  day  must  be  always. 

As  a  foil  to  these  introspective  shadows  of  the 
young  poet  himself,  we  have  the  following  letter, 
written  by  his  father  to  his  uncle,  Milton  Hay,  to 
whom  the  youth  owed  his  college  education. 

WARSAW,  ILL.,  Sept.  6th,  '58. 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  — 

.  .  .  John  is  now  at  home,  and  I  am  somewhat 
undecided  as  to  what  course  I  will  advise  him  to 
pursue.  Augustus  and  his  mother  both  protested 


54  JOHN   HAY 

against  his  becoming  a  schoolmaster  in  Warsaw  — 
at  least  ere  entering  upon  the  study  of  a  profession. 
So  I  did  not  put  in  his  claims  before  our  board  of 
education  at  the  reelection  of  teachers  which  took 
place  before  John's  return.  I  am  not  certain  that 
a  berth  of  that  kind  would  be  a  pleasant  one  for  him 
in  Warsaw,  and  at  all  events  the  vacancies  were  so 
far  filled  before  his  return  that  I  suppose  his  posi 
tion  now  would  have  to  be  one  so  subordinate,  per 
haps,  that  it  would  neither  suit  his  self-esteem  nor 
his  pecuniary  wants.  I  have  some  reasons  too  for 
not  wishing  to  place  him  in  a  law  office  in  Warsaw, 
which  it  is  unnecessary  to  name  here  now,  and  some 
further  reasons  for  not  wishing  him  to  remain  at  all 
in  Warsaw  through  the  winter. 

In  the  meantime  some  of  his  friends  urge  him  to 
turn  his  attention  immediately  to  the  law,  while 
others,  especially  some  valued  ones  at  the  East,  ad 
vise  him  to  turn  his  attention  at  once  and  wholly  to 
literature.  I  wish  him,  of  course,  to  have  some  pro 
fession  upon  which  he  can  fall  back,  or  rather  rise 
upon,  while  he  is  rising,  higher.  Upon  what  terms 
can  he  enter  your  office  and  spend  twelve  months 
as  a  student?  His  board  bill  I  would  endeavor  to 
render  account  for  with  the  girls  and  sisters.  He  is 
restless  and  wishes  to  know  his  destiny,  although  he 
expects  me  to  decide  for  him  entirely.  Augustus, 


THE   POET   IN   EXILE  55 

with  his  native  ambitious  aspirations,  would  have 
him  set  out  on  a  splendid  career  at  once.  That  is,  if 
his  purse  were  long  enough  he  would  have  [him] 
return  as  a  resident  graduate  to  Brown,  read  exten 
sively,  and  write  for  Eastern  periodicals  until  a  time 
and  opening  offered  for  taking  a  high  position  some 
where.  But  the  purse  is  not  full  and  will  not  be 
shortly  at  all  events.  I  feel  that  I  would  do  wrong  not 
to  encourage  him  to  acquire  a  profession  at  once,  and 
then  do  the  best  afterwards  in  that  profession  until 
a  surer  and  better  opening  was  apparent  in  some 
other  direction.  He  thinks  now  that  he  cannot  make 
a  speaker,  but  I  believe  in  the  maxim  of  old  Horace, 
"  Poeta  nascitur,  orator  fit.11  The  Poet  is  born,  but 
the  orator  is  made  by  cultivation.  I  will  wait  your 
answer  before  I  make  up  my  final  decision  as  to  what 
course  he  will  be  advised  to  this  winter. 

Hay  passed  through  a  long  period  of  melancholy. 
How  fully  his  family  were  aware  of  it,  I  have  not 
learned.  Outwardly,  he  meant  to  keep  up  a  smiling 
front,  so  that  perhaps  they  attributed  any  gloom 
they  detected  to  his  constitutional  fits  of  depression. 
He  had  scarcely  reached  Warsaw  before  he  referred 
to  his  life  at  Providence  as  a  "  happier  state  of  exist 
ence,"  and  he  looked  forward  to  "the  solitude  of  a 
Western  winter"  with  foreboding.  His  letters,  few 


56  JOHN  HAY 

in  number,  to  Miss  Perry  and  to  Mrs.  Whitman, 
are  truly  representative.  To  those  sympathetic 
ladies  he  revealed  what  he  hid  from  others.  Poets 
themselves,  they  would  understand  a  poet. 

On  October  12,  1858,  he  writes  to  Miss  Perry:  — 
"I  shall  never  cease  to  congratulate  myself  upon 
the  acquaintances  I  formed  during  the  last  few 
months  of  my  stay  in  Providence.  I  found  among 
them  the  objects  for  which  my  mind  had  always 
longed,  true  appreciation  and  sympathy.  It  is  to 
their  own  goodness  and  generosity  that  I  render  all 
the  kindness  which  I  met  with,  and  not  to  any 
qualities  of  my  own;  for  it  is  the  highest  glory  of 
genius  to  be  quick  in  sympathy  and  prodigal  of 
praise.  But  now  when  I  am  removed  to  a  colder 
mental  atmosphere,  and  the  hopes  and  aspirations 
that  gilded  the  gliding  hours  of  my  last  year  at  col 
lege  are  fading  away,  I  still  can  console  myself  with  a 
dream  of  the  possibilities  that  once  were  mine,  and 
soothe  my  soul  with  the  shadowy  Might-have-been. 
"In  spite  of  the  praise  which  you  continually 
lavish  upon  the  West,  I  must  respectfully  assert  that 
I  find  only  a  dreary  waste  of  heartless  materialism, 
where  great  and  heroic  qualities  may  indeed  bully 
their  way  up  into  the  glare,  but  the  flowers  of  exist 
ence  inevitably  droop  and  wither.  So  in  time  I  shall 
change.  I  shall  turn  from  'the  rose  and  the  rainbow' 


THE   POET   IN   EXILE  57 

to  corner-lots  and  tax-titles,  and  a  few  years  will  find 
my  eye  not  rolling  in  a  fine  frenzy,  but  steadily  fixed 
on  the  pole-star  of  humanity,  $! 

"  But  I  am  not  yet  so  far  degraded  that  I  cannot 
love  poetry  and  worship  a  poet.  So  let  me  implore 
you  to  ask  a  favor  of  me  as  often  as  you  possibly 
can  —  whatever  it  is,  it  is  granted  as  soon  as  asked, 
if  you  will  only  acknowledge  it  as  you  did  the  last. 
If  you  will  so  far  favor  me,  your  letters  will  be  a 
thread  of  gold  woven  into  the  dusky  texture  of  a 
Western  life. 

"With  unalloyed  pleasure  I  copy  that  delicious 
'La  Papillon/  but  are  you  not  ashamed  of  your  un 
natural  neglect?  I  would  take  the  bright  wanderer 
and  claim  it  for  my  own  if  I  dared.  But  it  would  look 
in  my  household  like  the  last  hope  of  Persia  in  the 
hovel  of  a  cobbler  of  Bagdad."  * 

The  highly  literary  quality  of  this  letter  need  not 
lead  us  to  suspect  the  sincerity  of  Hay's  feelings. 
Addressing  a  poetess,  he  naturally  indulged  in  the 
Parnassian  dialect. 

To  Mrs.  Whitman  he  wrote  less  exuberantly,  but 
in  the  same  vein :  — 

"  I  very  much  fear  that  if  I  remain  in  the  West,  I 
will  entirely  lose  all  the  aspirations  I  formerly  cher 
ished,  and  see  them  fading  with  effortless  apathy. 
1  Poet  in  Exile,  pp.  17-19. 


58  JOHN  HAY 

Under  the  influence  of  the  Boeotian  atmosphere 
around  me,  my  spirit  will  be  'subdued  to  what  it 
works  in/  and  my  residence  in  the  East  will  remain 
in  memory,  an  oasis  in  the  desolate  stretch  of  a  ma 
terial  life.  So  before  the  evil  days  come  on  I  cling 
more  and  more  eagerly  to  the  ties  which  connect  me 
with  Providence  and  civilization,  and  only  hope  that 
those  whose  genius  I  have  long  admired  and  whose 
characters  I  lately  learned  to  love,  may  not  utterly 
cast  me  off,  but  sometimes  reach  me  a  hand  in  the 
darkness  to  raise  and  console. " 

Whatever  tragedies  of  dashed  hopes,  thwarted 
ambitions,  and  mordant  regrets  were  being  enacted 
in  John's  distempered  heart,  he  seemed  fairly  normal 
to  those  around  him.  From  the  next  letter,  which  he 
wrote  to  his  Uncle  Milton,  we  infer  that  the  young 
man  was  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  have  the  de 
cision  made  which  should  put  an  end  to  his  perplex 
ity  and  self-searchings. 

WARSAW,  ILLINOIS,  Jan.  28th,  1859. 

MY  DEAR  UNCLE,  — 

Although  I  have  very  little  to  say,  I  write  accord 
ing  to  your  request  to  let  you  know  how  I  am  get 
ting  along.  I  am  not  making  the  most  rapid  prog 
ress  in  the  law.  I  have,  as  you  advised,  read  all  of 
Hume  consecutively,  and,  to  speak  with  moderation, 


THE   POET   IN  EXILE  59 

remember  some  of  it.  I  would  then  immediately 
have  made  an  attack  upon  Blackstone,  had  I  not 
been  prevented  for  a  while  by  the  general  worth- 
lessness  induced  by  the  distemper  that  has  troubled 
me  more  or  less  all  the  season.  During  the  last  few 
weeks  I  have  been  occupied  in  making  preparations 
for  a  lecture  before  the  "Literary  Institute"  in  this 
town.  I  delivered  it  last  Saturday  evening  to  the 
best  house  I  have  ever  seen  in  Warsaw.  I  think  it 
was  well  received.  People  did  not  expect  much  from 
a  boy,  and  so  were  more  than  satisfied.  I  have  been 
asked  to  write  again  but  shall  not.  It  is  too  great 
an  expenditure  of  time  for  no  pay  but  nine  days* 
glory. 

It  has  had  one  effect,  at  least.  It  has  convinced 
my  very  pious  friends  in  this  place  that  there  is  no 
sphere  of  life,  for  me,  but  the  pulpit.  I  have  been 
repeatedly  told  by  lawyers  here  that  I  will  never 
make  my  living  by  pettifogging.  This  is,  of  course, 
very  encouraging,  but  I  think,  if  my  manifest  des 
tiny  is  to  starve,  I  prefer  to  do  it  in  a  position  where 
I  will  have  only  myself  to  blame  for  it.  I  would  not 
do  for  a  Methodist  preacher,  for  I  am  a  poor  horse 
man.  I  would  not  suit  the  Baptists,  for  I  dislike 
water.  I  would  fail  as  an  Episcopalian,  for  I  am  no 
ladies'  man.  In  spite  of  my  remonstrance,  however, 
I  am  button-holed  in  the  street  daily,  and  exhorted 


60  JOHN  HAY 

to  enter  into  orders.  Our  minister  here  has  loaded 
me  with  books  which  he  innocently  expects  me  to 
read  —  as  if  my  life  was  long  enough.  I  find  it  the 
easiest  way  to  agree  with  everything  they  say  and 
to  follow  the  example  of  the  shrewd  youth  in  the 
parable,  who  "said,  'I  go/  and  went  not." 

I  have  a  quiet  room  here  to  myself  in  which  I  can 
do  as  much  as  I  could  anywhere,  alone.  I  suppose 
that  I  miss  the  personal  superintendence  of  a  precep 
tor,  but  hope  that  I  can  make  up  for  that  loss  here 
after.  If  you  think,  at  any  time,  that  I  can  engage 
in  anything  profitable,  either  to  myself  or  others, 
by  coming  to  Springfield,  I  am  ready  to  come.  You 
spoke  of  a  possibility  of  my  succeeding,  in  case  of  a  va 
cancy,  to  a  berth  in  the  Auditor's  office.  That  would 
be  especially  pleasant,  as  I  suppose  it  would  give 
me  free  access  to  the  libraries  in  the  State  House. 
However,  I  am  very  easily  contented,  in  whatever 
sphere  I  may  be  placed,  and  can  always  wait  for  the 
tide  of  circumstances  without  any  inconvenience. 
Meanwhile,  I  will  go  on  and  read  Blackstone  at 
home.  It  is  as  pleasant  as  possible  in  Warsaw  now. 
...  I  send  you  what  our  paper  has  to  say  about  my 
lecture. 

Please  remember  me  to  all  the  family,  especially 
to  Grandfather. 

JOHN  M.  HAY. 


THE   POET   IN   EXILE  61 

The  newspaper  clipping  says  that  Mr.  J.  M.  Hay's 
lecture,  upon  the  "History  of  the  Jesuits,"  was  <4a 
very  able  and  eloquent  effort,  indeed,  considering  the 
age  of  the  speaker  —  being  not  yet  twenty  years 
of  age.  .  .  .  The  church  was  crowded  with  listeners, 
many  of  whom  were  unable  to  get  seats.  .  .  .  His 
voice  was  strong  and  clear,  and  his  manner  of  de 
livery  excellent  —  far  surpassing  that  of  any  person 
we  have  before  heard  in  our  city.  .  .  .  Being  raised 
in  this  city,  of  course  many  turned  out  to  hear  him, 
and  not  one  have  we  heard  who  was  not  well  pleased 
with  his  effort,  and  who  does  not  accord  to  him  all 
praise  for  historical  research,  and  for  the  fine  flights 
of  eloquence  of  which  he  delivered  himself  at  inter 
vals  throughout  the  lecture.  The  parents  of  this 
young  man  may  justly  feel  proud  of  him,  as  do  the 
citizens  of  our  city,  for  his  intelligence  and  manly 
bearing.  He  has  the  talents,  and  if  he  does  not  make 
his  mark  in  the  world  as  a  bright  and  shining  light, 
the  fault  is  with  himself. " 

John  Hay  lived  to  read  many  eulogies  on  his 
writings,  but  perhaps  he  rarely  felt  a  more  genuine 
thrill  than  when  he  saw  this  first  certificate  to  local 
fame.  His  letter  to  his  uncle  reveals  his  inner  nature 
not  less  certainly  than  do  his  dithyrambic  effusions 
to  Miss  Perry  and  Mrs.  Whitman.  Especially  no 
ticeable  is  the  trait,  which  clung  to  him  through  life, 


62  JOHN  HAY 

of  reluctance  to  push  himself  forward.  This  was  due 
not  to  self-distrust,  but  to  a  shy  fastidiousness. 

On  December  15,  1858,  Hay  writes  again  to  Mrs. 
Whitman:  " .  .  .  It  may  seem  little  to  you  to  give  a 
few  words  of  generous  praise  to  a  moody  boy  or  to 
send  an  exile  in  the  West  stray  glimpses  of  the  pleas 
ant  world  he  has  left  forever.' '.  He  then  refers  to 
her  description  of  Niagara  Falls,  which  reminded  him 
"of  thoughts  that  came  dimly  to  me  as  I  stood  in 
the  spray  of  that  infinite  torrent,  and  which  seemed 
to  me  unutterable.  And  is  not  this  the  office  of 
Genius?  to  set  in  clear  and  intelligible  forms  of 
beauty  the  vague  and  chaotic  fancies  that  flit  across 
the  minds  of  the  multitude?  Is  not  the  poet  rather 
an  Interpreter  than  a  Creator?  It  is  almost  the  same 
in  effect.  All  the  Greeks  thought  Olympus  majes 
tic  till  some  shepherd-poet  peopled  it  with  gods. 
Those  fancies  which  in  the  common  mind  are  the 
wild  and  restless  float  of  the  waves,  become  embodied 
in  the  mind  of  the  poet,  in  the  perfect  beauty  of 
Aphrodite  hanging  forever  in  god-like  loveliness 
above  the  tumultuous  waste  of  the  unresting  seas." 
He  excuses  his  silence  of  several  months.  "I  have 
been  very  near  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow.  I  felt  the 
deprivation  keenly  in  the  fall,  when  the  woods  were 
blazing  with  the  autumnal  transfiguration,  and  the 
night  slept  tranced  in  the  love  of  the  harvest  moon. 


THE  POET   IN   EXILE  63 

I  am  now  as  well  as  ever."  But  he  despairs  of  going 
East  to  live.  "A  few  months  of  exile  has  worn  the 
luster  from  my  dreams  and  well-nigh  quenched  all 
liberal  aspirations.  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  gain 
either  honor  or  profit  by  writing,  so  I  suppose  the 
sooner  I  turn  my  attention  to  those  practical  studies 
which  are  to  minister  to  the  material  wants  in  the 
West,  the  better  it  will  be.  ...  It  is  dangerous  for 
me  to  write  the  names  of  Eastern  friends.  It  makes 
me  discontented  with  my  surroundings."  1 

On  January  2,  1859,  Hay  writes  to  Miss  Perry, 
whom  he  ventures  to  address  as  "Nora,"  and  con 
gratulates  her  on  her  ideal  position.  "The  world 
must  be  very  fair  as  seen  through  the  rosy  atmos 
phere  of  luxuriant  youth  and  maidenhood."  He,  on 
the  contrary,  is  called  to  the  "barbarous  West,"  yet 
he  accepts  "calmly,  if  not  joyfully,  the  challenge 
of  fate.  From  present  indications  my  sojourn  in  this 
'wale  of  tears/  as  the  elder  Weller  pathetically 
styles  it,  will  not  be  very  protracted.  I  can  stand  it 
for  a  few  years,  I  suppose.  My  father,  with  more  am 
bition  and  higher  ideals  than  I,  has  dwelt  and  la 
bored  here  a  lifetime,  and  even  this  winter  does  not 
despair  of  creating  an  interest  in  things  intellectual/ 
among  the  great  unshorn  of  the  prairies.  I  am  not 
suited  for  a  reformer.  I  do  not  like  to  meddle  with 
1  From  an  unpublished  letter  in  Brown  University  Library. 


64  JOHN  HAY 

moral  ills.  I  love  comfortable  people.  In  the  words 
of  the  poet  Pigwiggen  .  .  .  ' I  know  I'm  a  genus, 
'cause  I  hate  work  worse  'n  thunder,  and  would  like 
to  cut  my  throat  —  only  it  hurts.  .  .  .'  There  is,  as 
yet,  no  room  in  the  West  for  a  genius.  .  .  .  Impu 
dence  and  rascality  are  the  talismans  that  open  the 
gates  of  preferment.  I  am  a  Westerner.  The  influ 
ences  of  civilization  galvanized  me  for  a  time  into  a 
feverish  life,  but  they  will  vanish  before  this  death- 
in-life  of  solitude.  I  chose  it,  however,  and  my  blood 
is  on  my  own  head."  In  conclusion,  he  encloses  as 
an  offering  to  Mrs.  Whitman,  two  poems,  "Parted" 
and  "In  the  Mist."  : 

Throughout  the  autumn  and  winter,  Hay  experi 
enced  that  disenchantment  with  the  world  which 
often  overshadows  alike  the  artistic  and  the  devout 
in  their  first  serious  encounter  with  life.  Common 
though  the  disillusion  is,  each  of  its  victims  supposes 
that  he  is  the  first  to  suffer  under  it.  In  Hay's  case, 
it  coincided  with  one  of  his  periodic  fits  of  melan 
cholia.  He  desired  to  be  a  poet.  His  recent  happy 
years  in  the  East  had  not  only  developed  his  poetic 
talents,  but  they  had  also  brought  the  confirmation 
of  the  persons  whose  judgment  he  trusted.  If  Nora 
Perry,  if  Mrs.  Whitman  encouraged  him  in  his  am 
bition,  how  could  he  doubt? 

1  Poet  in  Exile,  pp.  22-25. 


THE  POET   IN  EXILE  65 

But  "being  a  poet"  is  such  a  different  matter 
from  what  the  young  aspirant  imagines!  Primarily, 
because  the  world,  with  its  hard  common  sense,  cares 
in  the  long  run  for  only  good  poetry;  and  since  it 
often  requires  a  generation  to  sift  the  bad  from  the 
good,  the  poet  may  be  dead  before  his  work  is  ac 
cepted.  By  what  seems  a  sardonic  decree,  poets  — 
privileged  beholders  and  describers  of  the  ideal  — 
are  locked  up  in  human  bodies,  which  must  be  fed, 
clothed,  and  housed:  and  the  unrecognized  bard,  if 
he  have  only  his  poems  to  pay  for  the  necessaries, 
will  go  hungry  and  naked.  Instead  of  charging  Fate 
with  cruelty,  however,  we  ought  to  perceive  that 
this  provision  automatically  saves  the  world  from 
being  overrun  by  third-rate  poetasters:  and  we  may 
even  argue  that  Fate  is  on  the  side  of  the  good  poets. 
The  Muse  is  as  jealous  a  mistress  now  as  ever  she 
was;  and  when  any  of  her  young  devotees  dreams 
that  he  could  worship  her  best  if  he  had  a  sufficient 
bank  account,  he  reveals  that  he  is  either  unworthy 
or  callow. 

Through  those  bitter  months  Hay  ruminated  on 
these  things.  Having  set  his  heart  on  the  bright 
est,  he  learned  that  the  cosmic  laws  would  not  be 
changed  for  his  benefit.  When  a  youth  discovers 
that  special  favors  are  not  accorded  to  the  virtuous, 
he  feels  as  Job,  the  just  man,  felt,  that  he  has  been 


66  JOHN  HAY 

betrayed  by  the  moral  scheme  in  which  he  confided, 
and  he  asks  himself  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  go 
on  living  in  a  world  capable  of  such  treachery. 
Hay  drank  his  cup  of  wormwood  to  the  bottom. 
How  deeply  he  suffered  appears  in  the  following 
letter. 

11 1  have  wandered  this  winter  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,"  Hay  wrote  Miss  Perry  in  the 
spring.  "All  the  universe,  God,  earth,  and  heaven 
have  been  to  me  but  vague  and  gloomy  phantasms. 
I  have  conversed  with  wild  imaginings  in  the  gloom 
of  the  forests.  I  have  sat  long  hours  by  the  sandy 
marge  of  my  magnificent  river,  and  felt  the  awful 
mystery  of  its  unending  flow,  and  heard  an  infi 
nite  lament  breathed  in  the  unquiet  murmur  of  its 
whispering  ripples.  Never  before  have  I  been  so 
much  in  society.  Yet  into  every  parlor  my  Daemon 
has  pursued  me.  When  the  air  has  been  fainting 
with  poisoned  perfumes,  when  every  spirit  thrilled 
to  the  delicate  touch  of  airy  harmonies,  when  per 
fect  forms  moved  in  unison  with  perfect  music,  and 
mocked  with  their  voluptuous  grace  the  tortured  as 
pirations  of  poetry,  I  have  felt,  coming  over  my  soul, 
colder  than  a  northern  wind,  a  conviction  of  the 
hideous  unreality  of  all  that  moved  and  swayed  and 
throbbed  before  me.  It  was  not  with  the  eye  of  a 
bigot,  or  the  diseased  perceptions  of  a  penitent,  that 


THE   POET   IN   EXILE  67 

I  looked  upon  such  scenes ;  it  was  with  what  seemed 
to  me- 

"Thus  far  I  wrote,  and  turned  over  the  page  and 
wrote  no  more  for  an  hour.  You  have  had  enough 
of  that  kind  of  agonized  confession,  have  n't  you? 
An  open  human  heart  is  not  a  pleasant  thing.  I  only 
wanted  to  tell  you  why  I  had  not  written.  It  would 
have  been  easier  to  say  it  was  simply  impossible."  1 

Again  we  note  the  premeditated,  literary  quality 
of  his  personal  confession,  and  we  wonder  whether 
the  suffering  could  be  genuine  which  he  described  in 
such  nicely  balanced,  rhetorical  sentences.  But  we 
must  remember  that  he  was  consciously  trying  to 
write  up  to  what  he  assumed  to  be  Nora  Perry's 
ethereal  plane;  that  he  had  been  feeding  on  the  works 
of  the  Romanticists  then  in  fashion;  and  that,  as  is 
the  way  with  young  authors  absorbed  in  their  own 
emotions,  he  dramatized  himself. 

Poet  he  wished  to  be,  and  if  his  wit  had  had  the 
compulsion  of  genius,  neither  poverty,  nor  hardships, 
nor  the  world's  neglect  would  have  restrained  him. 
He  would  have  managed  somehow  to  sing  in  War 
saw,  Illinois,  as  validly  as  Robert  Burns  did  in  Moss- 
giel,  Scotland.  He  gave  up  his  career  reluctantly, 
with  poignant  regret,  but  without  any  after  effects  of 
cynicism.  First  love  may  be  sweetest,  but  it  is  not 

1  Poet  in  Exik,  pp.  41-42:  Springfield,  Illinois,  May  15,  1859. 


68  JOHN  HAY 

the  deepest;  and  although  Hay  could  not  forsake  all 
else  to  follow  the  Muse,  still  he  never  lost  his  enthu 
siasm  for  her;  and  up  to  the  end  of  his  life,  when  any 
emotion  stirred  him  greatly,  he  sought  a  vent  for  it 
in  verse. 

Hay's  family  recognized  his  literary  achievement 
at  Brown,  and  were  proud  of  it,  and  they  allowed 
him  ample  time  to  choose  his  life-work.  When  he 
had  convinced  himself  that  his  poet  dream  could  not 
be  realized,  and  had  canvassed  and  discarded  various 
suggestions,  —  including  the  ministry,  —  he  finally 
settled  upon  the  law.  "They  would  spoil  a  first- 
class  preacher  to  make  a  third-class  lawyer  of  me," 
he  is  reported  to  have  said.  His  father  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  one  son  follow  his  own  profession : 
but  John  and  his  brothers  had  seen  too  much  of  the 
laboriousness  of  the  life  of  a  country  doctor  to  care 
to  undertake  it.  The  law,  on  the  other  hand,  held 
out  special  inducements:  for  John  was  to  enter  the 
office  at  Springfield  of  his  Uncle  Milton,  who  stood 
among  the  leaders  of  the  Illinois  Bar.  Might  not  the 
law  be  regarded  almost  as  a  literary  profession? 
Had  not  the  ranks  of  men  of  letters  been  recruited 
from  the  lawyers?  At  that  very  moment  did  not 
James  Russell  Lowell's  case  prove  that,  given  the 
right  endowment,  one  might  mount  from  apprentice 
ship  in  the  law  to  the  sphere  of  poetry  and  belles- 


THE  POET   IN  EXILE  69 

lettres?  A  successful  lawyer  might  earn  a  sufficient 
fortune  to  retire  from  practice  and  devote  himself 
to  literature  while  he  was  still  young  enough  to  win 
fame  therein:  just  as  middle-aged  men  sometimes 
marry  the  sweethearts  of  their  youth  —  with  the 
happiest  results. 

Disappointed,  but  not  cast  down,  John  Hay  ac 
cordingly  began  his  legal  training  with  his  Uncle 
Milton  in  the  spring  of  1859.  Before  we  describe  his 
new  life,  however,  we  will  conclude  his  self-revela 
tions  to  Miss  Perry. 

He  wrote  the  glowing  letter  just  quoted,  after  he 
had  settled  in  Springfield.  "  I  am  now  at  work/'  he 
added.  "  In  work  I  always  find  rest.  A  strange  para 
dox  —  but  true.  If  my  health  returns,  I  do  not  ques 
tion  but  that  I  shall  work  out  of  these  shadows.  If 
not,  there  is  a  cool  rest  under  the  violets,  and  eter 
nity  is  long  enough  to  make  right  the  errors  and  de 
ficiencies  of  time."  1 

Here  is  the  familiar  note  which  youth  utters  when 
bereavement  or  self-abnegation  or  contrition  sweeps 
over  it.  "  I  can  bear  —  but  I  am  sure  to  die  soon," 
says  the  young  self-pitier,  unaware  that  vanity  and 
not  fortitude  is  speaking,  and  that  grief  has  its 
luxury  which  must  be  checked.  In  Hay's  case,  there 
seems  no  doubt  that  he  suffered  from  poor  health 

1  Poet  in  Exile,  pp.  42-43. 


70  JOHN  HAY 

that  winter;  possibly  he  thought  that  he  had  a  disease 
which  would  soon  carry  him  off :  but  his  yearning  for 
rest  under  the  violets  is  so  common  among  youths 
who  take  Fate's  rebuffs  sentimentally  that  we  need 
not  be  alarmed  by  it.  Nevertheless,  we  must  not  be 
little  the  burden  of  misery  which  a  nature  like  his 
actually  feels  under  such  conditions. 

Nearly  a  year  later,  although  he  was  then  out 
wardly  wrapped  up  in  his  new  career  at  Springfield, 
he  replied  regretfully  to  a  letter  from  Miss  Perry:  — 

* '  I  hope  you  may  never  be  placed  in  a  situation  where 
you  will  be  able  to  sympathize  with  my  present  habi 
tudes  of  mind,  or  appreciate  the  feelings  of  grateful 
delight  occasioned  by  a  kindness  like  your  last. 

"  When,  in  the  midst  of  my  laborious  and  intensely 
practical  studies,  the  current  of  my  thoughts  is 
changed  by  a  reminder  of  a  state  of  existence  so 
much  higher  than  mine,  I  feel  for  a  moment  as  a 
pilgrim  might  have  felt,  in  the  days  when  angels 
walked  with  men,  who,  lying  weary  and  exhausted 
with  his  toilsome  journey,  has  heard  in  the  desert 
silence  faint  hints  of  celestial  melody,  and  seen  the 
desolate  sands  empurpled  and  glorified  with  a  fleet 
ing  flash  of  spiritual  wings. 

"The  splendor  fades,  but  the  ripples  of  memory 
still  stir  the  stagnant  waters  of  the  soul,  and  life  is 
less  dreary  that  the  vision  has  come  and  gone. 


THE  POET   IN   EXILE  71 

"It  is  cowardly  in  me  to  cling  so  persistently  to  a 
life  which  is  past.  It  is  my  duty,  and  in  truth  it  is 
my  ultimate  intention  to  qualify  myself  for  a  West 
ern  lawyer,  et  prater ea  nihil,  l  only  that  and  nothing 
more/  Along  the  path  of  my  future  life,  short  though 
it  be,  my  vision  runs  unchecked.  No  devious  ways. 
No  glimpses  of  sudden  splendor  striking  athwart. 
No  mysteries.  No  deep  shadows,  save  those  in  my 
own  soul,  for  I  expect  prosperity,  speaking  after  the 
manner  of  men.  No  intense  lights  but  at  the  end. 
So  my  life  lies.  A  straight  path  —  on  both  sides 
quiet  labor,  at  the  end,  Death  and  Rest. 

"Yet  though  I  know  all  this,  though  I  feel  that 
Illinois  and  Rhode  Island  are  entirely  antipathetic, 
though  I  am  aware  that  thy  people  are  not  my  peo 
ple,  nor  thy  God  my  God,  I  cannot  shut  my  friends 
out  of  my  memory  or  annihilate  the  pleasant  past. 
I  cannot  help  being  delighted  to  receive  a  letter 
from  you,  and  to  know  that  the  Doctor  [Helme] 
sometimes  remembers  me.  When  I  read  'After  the 
Ball/  and  when,  going  into  the  State  House,  the 
Secretary  of  State  said  to  me,  '  Hay,  have  you  read 
the  last  Atlantic?  there  is  the  prettiest  poem  there 
this  month  it  has  ever  published!'  I  could  not  help 
feeling  a  personal  pride  that  I  had  heard  it  read, 
alive  with  the  poet's  voice  and  warm  from  the  poet's 
heart. 


72  JOHN  HAY 

"What  more  can  I  say  than  to  confess  that  my 
friends  are  necessary  to  me,  to  ask  you  to  give  my 
love  to  the  Doctor,  and  to  write  to  me  as  soon  as  you 
will.  How  glad  I  am  that  the  world  is  learning  to 
love  Mrs.  Whitman  as  much  as  those  who  have  sat 
at  the  feet  of  the  revered  Priestess."  l 

In  this  letter,  even  more  than  in  the  earlier,  we  per 
ceive  that  Hay  treats  himself  as  he  might  any  one 
else,  whose  plight  he  tries  to  describe  in  the  finest 
literary  style.  He  is  not  insincere;  he  is  simply  the 
artist,  using  his  own  emotions  as  stuff  for  his  story. 
When  this  tendency  becomes  a  habit,  spontaneity 
gives  way  to  artificiality:  as  in  the  case  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  who  would  spit  blood  in  his  hand 
kerchief,  and  a  few  minutes  later  seize  his  pen  and 
write  —  in  a  private  letter  intended  for  the  world  to 
admire  —  an  account  of  the  affair,  so  vivid,  so  cor 
rect,  so  "faultily  faultless,"  that  teachers  of  English 
might  hold  it  up  as  a  model  to  illiterate  Freshmen. 

Hay,  however,  was  still  far  from  this  pitch  of 
artistic  self-intoxication,  and,  thanks  to  happy  in 
fluences,  which  came  to  him  in  the  disguise  of  dis 
appointment,  he  never  reached  it.  He  believed  that 
what  he  wrote  to  Miss  Perry  depicted,  however 
faintly,  the  anguish  of  his  soul.  He  wished  also  to 
free  himself  from  the  suspicion  of  having  cravenly 
1  Poet  in  Exile,  pp.  44-46:  Springfield,  Illinois,  March  4,  1860. 


THE  POET   IN  EXILE  73 

deserted  the  ideal  life.  He  still  loved  the  Muse  best, 
and  only  under  the  duress  of  necessity  was  he  embark 
ing  on  the  worldly  profession  of  the  law.  But  though 
he  might  prosper, — and  he  expected  "prosperity, 
speaking  after  the  manner  of  men,"  —his  heart  would 
remain  true  to  the  ideal. 

Just  as  a  new  life,  of  amazing  inspiration,  was  open 
ing  for  him,  he  thus  pledged  his  devotion  to  the  old: 
and  he  never  wavered  in  it.  Long  afterward,  when 
he  appeared  to  strangers  an  accomplished  man  of  the 
world,  or  when  he  staggered  under  the  burdens  of 
statesmanship,  he  heard  again,  and  thrilled  to  hear, 
the  poetic  voices  which  captivated  his  youth.  So,  at 
certain  seasons,  dwellers  on  the  Breton  coast  hear 
the  pealing  of  the  bells  of  the  city  which  the  waves 
submerged  long,  long  ago. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   NEW   LIFE 

IN  March  or  April,  1859,  John  Hay  went  to  Spring 
field,  to  read  law  with  his  uncle,  who  was  head  of 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  successful  firms  in  the 
West.  Fifteen  years  before,  when  Stephen  T.  Logan 
directed  it,  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  a  partner, 
and,  besides  him,  two  of  his  associates  became  Con 
gressmen.  Under  Milton  Hay,  the  office  continued 
to  be  a  nursery  "for  cradling  public  men":1  for 
law  and  politics  interlocked  so  closely  that  they  often 
seemed  merely  two  aspects  of  the  same  profession. 
It  required  far  less  acumen  than  young  John  Hay 
possessed  to  discern  that  the  road  to  fortune  lay 
through  that  office.  The  material  expansion  of  Illi 
nois  —  its  railroads,  its  industries,  its  rapidly  grow 
ing  cities  and  towns,  with  the  consequent  fixing  of 
titles  and  contracts  and  the  adjusting  of  claims  — 
made  the  lawyer  the  one  indispensable  member  of 
the  community.  Men  might  manage  to  shift  with 
out  the  doctor,  because  Nature  herself  sometimes 

1  N.  &  H.,  I,  214,  n.  I.  "John  M.  Palmer  and  Shelby  M.  Cullom 
left  it  to  become  Governors  of  the  State,  and  the  latter  to  be  a  Con 
gressman  and  Senator." 


THE  NEW  LIFE  75 

worked  a  cure;  and  at  a  pinch  they  could  do  even 
without  the  minister,  taking  their  chances  as  to  the 
hereafter;  but  they  needed  the  lawyer  at  every  turn, 
and  it  was  only  a  step  from  applying  the  laws  to 
framing  them.  So  Hay  might  hope,  with  reasonable 
diligence,  either  to  prosper  at  the  bar,  or,  if  he  pre 
ferred,  to  enter  public  life,  which  offered  fame  as 
well  as  fortune. 

Far  more  important  was  it  to  the  young  appren 
tice,  however,  that  both  his  position  and  his  occu 
pation  threw  him  into  relations,  sometimes  very 
friendly,  with  the  leading  men  of  Illinois.  Such  a 
privilege  could  come  only  in  a  community  which,  al 
though  small  numerically,  held  the  keys  to  vast  enter 
prises.  The  material  development  of  Illinois  was 
at  that  period  of  incalculable  significance.  But  it  in 
volved  far  more  than  the  building  up  of  the  State 
itself;  for  the  growth  of  the  new  Northwest  and  the 
exploitation  of  transcontinental  projects  were  af 
fected,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  the  attitude  of  Illi 
nois,  and  this,  in  turn,  depended  upon  the  lawmakers 
at  Springfield.  And  just  at  this  time  political  con 
cerns  had  begun  to  overshadow  material.  The  crisis 
which  had  been  preparing  since  the  formation  of  the 
American  Union  could  no  longer  be  avoided,  either 
by  compromise,  or  threat,  or  ignoble  subservience. 
In  this  crisis  Fate  summoned  Illinois  to  play  a 


76  JOHN  HAY 

pivotal  part;  and  it  happened  that  the  providential 
man,  not  only  for  Illinois,  but  for  the  American 
Union,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  Anglo-Saxon 
civilization  in  the  United  States,  occupied  a  shabby 
law  office  alongside  of  Milton  Hay's,  and  practiced 
his  profession  during  those  intervals  when  politics 
did  not  utterly  engross  him. 

This  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  now  in  his  fiftieth 
year,  who  only  recently,  by  his  joint  debates  with 
Judge  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  had  sent  his  reputation 
beyond  the  borders  of  the  State.  Even  his  neighbors 
and  acquaintances,  of  whom  he  counted  hundreds  in 
central  and  northern  Illinois,  did  not  fully  under 
stand  the  genius  which  inspired  Lincoln  in  that 
campaign.  His  speeches,  whether  in  attack  or  rebut 
tal,  stand  alone  in  modern  oratory:  we  must  go 
back  to  the  Socratic  dialogues  to  find  their  parallels. 
He  spoke  so  simply,  he  met  his  enemy's  points  so 
honestly  and  demolished  them  so  easily,  that  his 
hearers,  though  entirely  convinced,  discovered  no 
thing  unusual  in  his  performance.  Eloquence  still 
meant  to  them  the  Olympian  dignity  and  the  deep, 
sonorous  voice  of  Daniel  Webster,  and  the  tidal 
ebb  and  flow  of  his  periods,  and  the  polish  of  his 
diction ;  or  it  meant  the  forceful  declamation  of  Cal- 
houn,  or  Wendell  Phillips's  invectives  gleaming  like 
bayonets  in  the  sun. 


THE  NEW  LIFE  77 

Lincoln  differed  from  all  these.  He  had  neither 
Webster's  imperial  presence,  nor  the  rich,  supple 
voice,  nor  the  polished  diction  and  gestures  of  the 
model  orator.  He  breathed  no  echo  of  Burke  or 
Chatham,  no  reminder  of  Cicero  or  Demosthenes. 
He  was  plain  Abraham  Lincoln,  addressing  crowds 
in  the  prairie  towns  as  naturally  as  he  would  have 
talked  to  them  one  by  one  on  his  front  porch.  He 
had  a  power  rarer  than  intellectual  keenness  or  the 
zealot's  fervor,  or  than  intoxicating  eloquence — the 
power  to  penetrate  to  fundamental  principles.  He 
saw  the  simple  bases  on  which  slavery  and  abolition, 
union  and  secession,  finally  rested;  and  in  every 
debate  he  quickly  stripped  away  confusing  details 
and  laid  bare  the  essentials,  which  he  presented  so 
simply  that  they  had  the  settled  quality  of  scientific 
formulas.  But  he  clothed  his  arguments  in  some 
parable  or  picturesque  figure  which  everybody  under 
stood,  and  could  not  forget;  and  he  spoke  so  sincerely 
that  it  was  evident  that  he  set  truth  above  a  political 
victory.  Where  Douglas  evaded  or  straddled,  Lin 
coln  stood  on  principle;  he  resorted  to  no  devices  and 
wasted  no  time  on  quibbles,  but  squarely  dislodged 
Douglas  from  one  perch  after  another.  Lincoln's 
good-nature,  his  humor,  his  wit,  and  large-hearted 
charity  were  as  conspicuous  as  his  trenchant  logic 
—  indeed,  they  sometimes  blinded  his  hearers  to  the 


78  JOHN  HAY 

extraordinary  skill  with  which  he  upheld  his  cause. 
We  see  now  that  while  he  was  ostensibly  working 
for  the  success  of  the  Republican  Party  in  the  next 
election  and  his  own  choice  as  senator,  he  was  really 
proclaiming  the  impossibility  that  the  nation  should 
continue  half-bond,  half -free,  and  he  was  restating 
the  fundamental  principles  without  which  civiliza 
tion  sinks  into  barbarism. 

In  November,  1858,  the  Republicans  outvoted  the 
Douglas  Democrats :  when  the  legislature  met,  how 
ever,  Douglas  beat  Lincoln  for  the  senatorship  by 
eight  votes;  and  while  he  went  in  triumph  to  the 
United  States  Senate,  Lincoln  returned  to  his  law 
office  in  Springfield.  But  the  triumph  was  brief. 
The  Little  Giant's  prestige  withered  under  the  effect 
of  Lincoln's  remorseless  criticism,  and  although  he 
lived  barely  three  years,  at  his  death  he  had  already 
outworn  his  influence.  History  will  not  forget  him, 
however  much  he  might  pray  to  be  forgotten;  be 
cause  he  is  as  indissolubly  bound  up  with  Lincoln's 
immortality  as  Brutus  is  with  Caesar's.  He  remains 
as  a  warning  to  men  of  good  intentions,  much  van 
ity,  and  no  solid  morality,  who,  in  a  national  crisis, 
when  the  differences  between  conflicting  principles 
stand  out  as  uncompromisingly  as  life  and  death, 
insist  that  it  is  only  a  matter  of  shading;  that  by 
calling  "black'"' white"  and  "white"  "black"  you 


THE   NEW  LIFE  79 

can  make  them  so;  that,  after  all,  there  are  no  immu 
table  things,  but  only  adjectives,  which  can  be  trans 
posed  or  varied,  like  a  girl's  ribbons,  to  suit  your 
fancy. 

Abraham  Lincoln  believed  that  there  are  certain 
eternal  distinctions  between  right  and  wrong,  and  he 
shattered  Douglas's  makeshifts  as  the  Matterhorn 
shatters  the  troops  of  clouds  which  drive  against  it 
from  one  direction  to  another.  And  even  though 
they  should  hide  the  mighty  peak  for  a  day,  they 
never  can  be  more  than  clouds,  unsubstantial  and 
evanescent,  whereas  the  Matterhorn  is  granite  and 
endures. 

"I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race,"  Lincoln  wrote 
to  a  friend.  "  It  gave  me  a  hearing  on  the  great  and 
durable  questions  of  the  age,  which  I  could  have 
had  in  no  other  way;  and  though  I  sink  out  of  view, 
and  shall  be  forgotten,  I  believe  I  have  made  some 
marks  for  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am 
gone."1 

To  another  correspondent  he  replied:  "The  fight 
must  go  on.  The  cause  of  civil  liberty  must  not 
be  surrendered  at  the  end  of  one  or  even  one  hun 
dred  defeats.  Douglas  had  the  ingenuity  to  be  sup 
ported  in  the  late  contest,  both  as  the  means  to 
break  down  and  to  uphold  the  slave  interest.  No 

1  Lincoln  to  Henry,  November  19,  1858. 


8o  JOHN  HAY 

ingenuity  can  keep  these  antagonistic  elements  in 
harmony  long.  Another  explosion  will  soon  come." 1 

When  John  Hay2  began  his  career  in  his  Uncle 
Milton's  office,  he  found  this  strange  figure  next 
door,  and  it  could  not  have  been  long  before  he,  like 
every  one  else,  was  listening  to  Lincoln's  stories  and 
was  feeling  the  indefinable  fascination  of  his  homely 
wit  and  moral  fervor.  Not  that  Hay  at  twenty- 
one  suspected  the  heroic  possibilities  in  the  sad- 
eyed,  ungainly  pioneer,  who  uttered  parables  in 
language  that  might  have  been  taken  from  the  New 
Testament,  or  indulged  in  coarse  jokes,  or  drew 
vivid  word- portraits  of  the  Western  notables,  or 
stated  political  issues  with  masterly  clearness.  Young 
Hay,  still  regretting  his  parting  from  the  Muses, 
and  still  surreptitiously  seeking  their  inspiration, 
could  not  be  expected  to  recognize  in  Lincoln  their 
substitute. 

But  even  casual  association  with  "Honest  Abe,'7 
as  his  fellow  citizens  called  him,  could  not  fail  to  af 
fect  the  impressionable  youth.  By  nature  sanguine 
and  social,  Hay  was  not  of  those  who  can  nurse  a  life 
long  sorrow.  His  heart  required  time  in  order  to  be 
reconciled  to  the  surrender  of  its  poetic  dreams,  but 
his  head  acquiesced,  and,  acquiescing,  took  an  eager 

1  Lincoln  to  Asbury,  November  19,  1858.   Both  in  N.  &  H.,  II, 
169. 

2  On  leaving  Brown,  Hay  dropped  his  middle  name,  "Milton." 


THE  NEW  LIFE  81 

interest  in  the  men  with  whom  he  was  thrown ;  and 
his  intellectual  curiosity  kindled  by  degrees  into  pas 
sionate  zeal. 

Indeed,  only  a  creature  as  emotionless  as  pumice- 
stone  could  remain  torpid  in  that  crisis,  when  the 
conflict  —  foreseen,  dreaded,  dodged,  smothered,  for 
as  far  back  as  men  could  remember  —  was  bursting 
into  flame.  To  be  neutral  then  was  to  be  an  out 
cast.  Every  one  must  choose  his  side,  for  or  against 
slavery  and  secession.  The  question  was  compli 
cated,  however,  because  a  man  who  detested  slav 
ery  might  honestly  believe  that  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  even  with  slavery  allowed  to  continue  in 
the  Southern  States,  was  the  chief  concern.  To  de 
stroy  the  Union  would  not  free  the  slaves,  but  would 
set  up  two  hostile  republics  instead  of  one  which, 
although  then  torn  by  sectional  differences,  seemed 
intended  by  destiny  to  remain  one. 

Brought  up  in  a  family  which  never  swerved  in 
its  devotion  to  freedom,  John  Hay  absorbed  his  po 
litical  opinions,  as  a  boy  does,  from  listening  to  his 
elders.  Owing  to  the  loss  of  his  early  correspondence, 
we  have  no  means  of  tracing  his  opinions  on  na 
tional  affairs;  but  this  can  hardly  matter,  because 
he  did  not  begin  to  think  for  himself  until  after  he 
returned  to  Springfield.  He  makes  only  one  refer 
ence  to  politics  in  the  letters  which  I  have  seen. 


82  JOHN  HAY 

Writing  to  his  mother  from  Providence  on  February 
6,  1856,  he  says:  ''Banks  is  Speaker.  There  is  very 
little  enthusiasm  here.  But  they  rejoice  in  a  quiet 
Yankee  sort  of  way.  How  'all-overish'  I  felt  one 
evening  when  Mrs.  Hunt  was  flaying  the  Abolition 
ists  alive.  Southern  Chivalry  is  in  the  ashes  at  pres 
ent.  'Sic  semper  Tyrannis1  says  the  North/' 1 

Three  years  later,  when  Hay  was  studying  law, 
the  recently  formed  Republican  Party  had  become 
powerful  as  the  successor  of  the  old  Whigs  and,  still 
more,  as  the  party  of  the  zealous  young  men  in  the 
North,  who  were  resolved  to  prevent  further  en 
croachments  by  the  Southern  slaveocracy.  It  was 
at  that  happy  stage  in  the  development  of  an  insti 
tution  when  its  ideals,  unsullied  as  yet  by  selfish 
desires,  justified  the  enthusiasm  of  its  supporters. 
Its  principles  had  the  compulsion  of  religion;  and 
rightly  so,  because  they  aimed  at  carrying  out  in 
the  sphere  of  public  life  the  behests  of  private  con 
science. 

Despite  his  avowal  that  he  was  not  suited  for  a 
reformer,  and  that  he  did  not  like  to  meddle  with 
moral  ills,  John  Hay  enrolled  himself  as  a  Republi 
can,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  he  soon  felt  the  moral 

1  Unedited  letter.  On  February  2,  1856,  N.  P.  Banks,  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  the  Republican  candidate,  was  elected  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  by  103  votes  to  100  for  Aiken,  of  South 
Carolina. 


THE   NEW  LIFE  83 

stimulus  of  working  with  a  party  dedicated  to  human 
liberty.  His  sense  of  humor,  always  alert,  kept  him 
from  being  blind  to  the  crudities  of  political  action; 
but  his  zeal  was  stronger  still. 

Little  record  has  come  to  hand  of  his  apprentice 
ship  in  law.  His  uncle's  office,  which  transacted  all 
sorts  of  legal  business,  offered  every  opportunity  for 
a  thorough  and  well-rounded  training.  Hay  was 
spasmodically  diligent,  and  having  made  up  his 
mind  to  be  a  lawyer,  he  exerted  himself,  as  was  his 
fashion,  to  succeed.  In  due  season  —  February  4, 
1 86 1  — he  was  admitted  to  the  bar. 

On  the  surface,  however,  Hay  appeared  to  his  as 
sociates  at  this  time  as  a  young  man  of  varied  rather 
than  serious  interests.  Quick  at  repartee  and  puns, 
lovable  in  disposition,  he  was  a  favorite  at  every 
social  gathering.  The  girls  delighted  in  him,  and  he 
in  them;  but,  as  one  of  the  survivors  writes  me,  "he 
found  safety  in  numbers."  They  took  French  les 
sons  together;  they  went  to  sociables  and  church 
fairs;  they  attended  sermons  and  lectures  and  polit 
ical  rallies.  Hay  shone  not  only  as  the  wittiest  of  the 
younger  set,  but  as  the  winner  of  unusual  distinc 
tion  in  an  Eastern  college,  and  as  a  reader  and  poet. 
His  opinions  on  books  made  the  rounds.  His  verses, 
sparkling  or  sentimental,  were  treasured  by  their 
recipients,  and  quoted.  Even  his  sedate  friend  John 


84  JOHN  HAY 

Nicolay,  who  had  settled  in  Springfield  to  edit  a 
newspaper,  was  enlivened  by  Hay's  example. 

Two  specimens  of  Hay's  fun,  though  but  trifles, 
may  be  cited.  The  first  is  a  note,  sent  to  three  sis 
ters  "  with  a  huge  bunch  of  wild,  blue  phlox,  1860  " : — 

"I  am  lamentably  ignorant  as  to  whether  Gold 
smith  is  one  of  your  favorite  poets,  but  if  he  is,  you 
have  doubtless  admired  his  beautiful  and  merciful 

lines :  — 

"'No  Phlox  that  range  the  valley  free 

To  slaughter  I  condemn; 
Taught  by  the  power  that  pities  me, 
I  learn  to  pity  them."' 

Another  is  from  an  invitation  from  Hay  to  one 
of  these  sisters  to  go  with  him  to  hear  Lincoln 
speak  in  Cook's  Hall.  Like  several  of  his  notes,  it 
is  written  in  a  French  which  gives  it  a  more  comical 
touch:  - 

"Je  suis  bien  heureux  que  je  puis  annoncer  a 
vous  que  M.  Lincoln,  1'honnete  vieux  Abe,  va  faire 
un  discours  a  la  salle  du  Cuisinier  demain  au  soir. 
Voulez  vous  rappeler  votre  promesse  et  m'accom- 
pagner?  J'espere  d'entendre  beaucoup  de  les  choses 
bonnes,  qui  reposent  comme  Lazare  apres  son  mort, 
en  'Abraham's  Bosom/"  1 

Whatever  regrets  Hay  buried  in  his  heart,  he 
faced  the  world  so  buoyantly  that  we  may  assume 

1  Printed  as  written. 


THE  NEW  LIFE  85 

that  the  wounds  of  disappointment  were  healing 
sooner  than  he  imagined. 

In  the  retrospect,  even  Warsaw  gleamed  with 
charms  for  him.  On  November  29, 1861,  he  wrote  to 
a  dear  young  friend  there :  — 

"Warsaw  dull?  It  shines  before  my  eyes  like  a 
social  paradise  compared  with  this  miserable  sprawl 
ing  village  [Washington]  which  imagines  itself  a 
city  because  it  is  wicked,  as  a  boy  thinks  he  is  a  man 
when  he  smokes  and  swears.  I  wish  I  could  by  wish 
ing  find  myself  in  Warsaw. 

"I  am  cross  because  I  am  away  from  Warsaw.  I 
believe  honestly  (if  it  is  possible  for  me  to  believe 
anything  honestly)  that  I  shall  never  enjoy  myself 
more  thoroughly  than  I  did  that  short  little  winter 
I  spent  at  home.  It  was  so  quiet  and  so  still,  so 
free  from  anything  that  could  disturb  or  bore  me, 
that  it  seems  in  the  busy  days  I  am  wearing  out 
now  like  a  queer  little  dream  of  contentment  and 
peace,  when  I  so  obstinately  and  persistently  left 
the  dear  old  town  that  rainy,  tearful,  doleful  Mon 
day  afternoon.  I  never  before  was  so  anxious  to  see 
Warsaw,  or  so  reluctant  to  leave  it.  It  is  a  good 
thing  to  go  home.  I  seem  to  take  a  new  lease  on  life; 
to  renew  a  fast-fleeting  youth  on  the  breezy  hills  of 
my  home.  I  feel  like  doing  a  marvelous  amount  of 
work  when  I  return,  and  the  dull  routine  of  every- 


86  JOHN  HAY 

day  labor  is  charmingly  relieved  by  vanishing  visions 
of  green  hills,  grand  rivers,  and  willowy  islands  that 
float  between  me  and  my  paper."  1 

By  the  spring  of  1860  he  took  a  keen  interest  in 
the  political  campaign.  The  Republican  State  Con 
vention,  which  met  at  Decatur  on  May  9  and  10, 
nominated  Lincoln  as  Illinois*  candidate  for  Presi 
dent.  Then  occurred  that  picturesque  scene  which 
illustrates  how  mankind  is  often  more  impressed  by 
symbols  than  by  what  the  symbols  stand  for.  Be 
fore  the  vote  was  taken,  word  came  from  outside  that 
an  old  Democrat  had  something  he  wished  to  give 
the  convention.  Presently,  in  came  Lincoln's  cousin, 
John  Hanks,  bearing  two  rails,  and  a  banner  with  the 
inscription:  " Abraham  Lincoln,  the  rail  candidate 
for  President  in  1860.  Two  rails  from  a  lot  of  3000 
made  in  1830  by  Thomas  Hanks  and  Abe  Lincoln 
—  whose  father  was  the  first  pioneer  of  Macon 
County. "  Amid  a  rush  of  enthusiasm  the  conven 
tion  voted  for  the  "Rail-splitter,"  and  this  nomina 
tion  the  Republican  National  Convention  confirmed 
at  Chicago  a  week  later,  when,  on  the  third  ballot, 
Lincoln  distanced  Seward,  New  York's  favorite 
son,  and  was  declared  the  unanimous  choice  of  the 
party  (May  17,  1860). 

From  that  moment,  Springfield,  Illinois,  loomed 

1  Century,  LXI,  453. 


THE   NEW  LIFE  87 

up  in  national  importance.  During  the  summer 
and  autumn  it  seethed  with  politics.  Every  Repub 
lican  politician,  every  friend  of  Lincoln,  and  even 
lukewarm  partisans  who,  notwithstanding,  desired 
to  see  him  elected  for  the  honor  of  the  city  and  the 
State,  joined  in  the  campaign.  The  young  men  threw 
themselves  into  the  cause  with  the  ardor  of  Crusa 
ders.  Among  them  was  Hay,  who  worked  to  enroll 
supporters  and  spoke  at  meetings  as  enthusiastically 
as  if  he  had  not  deplored,  in  his  letters  to  the  poet 
esses  at  Providence,  the  hopeless  materialism  of  the 
unshorn  men  of  the  prairies.  He  began  to  be  elec 
trified  by  the  ideals  which  underlay  the  Republican 
movement.  Nicolay  served  Lincoln  as  secretary  in 
the  campaign,  and  Hay  helped  Nicolay. 

After  his  election  as  President,  on  November  6, 
Lincoln*  appointed  Nicolay  as  his  private  secretary. 
His  duties  increased  to  such  proportions  that,  al 
though  he  was  one  of  the  most  industrious  of  men, 
they  soon  exceeded  his  capacity,  and  he  suggested 
that  Hay  be  employed  as  assistant  secretary.  "We 
can't  take  all  Illinois  with  us  down  to  Washington," 
the  President-elect  said,  good-humoredly;  and  then 
after  a  pause,  as  if  relenting,  he  added:  "Well,  let 
Hay  come." 

Thus  Fortune  opened  her  door  to  the  young  man 
of  twenty-two.  Instead  of  condemning  him  to  per- 


88  JOHN   HAY 

petual  banishment  in  the  "West,"  she  led  him  to  the 
East,  to  Washington,  to  the  White  House,  to  be  the 

confidential  helper  of  "the  most  sympathetic  among 

v--t? 

all  Americans,  living  or  dead,"  at  the  most  exciting 

^ 

national  crisis  since  the  American  Union  was  founded. 
Hay  knew  that  this  experience  could  not  fail  to  be 
a  stepping-stone  to  whatever  he  might  do  later. 
President  Lincoln,  we  may  believe,  saw  more  in  him 
than  a  clerical  assistant  —  clerks  could  be  had  any 
where:  he  saw  the  fresh,  easy-mannered,  sunny  com 
panion,  who  might  relieve  the  tedium  of  routine  life; 
the  youth  who,  apparently  understanding  by  intui 
tion  the  ways  of  the  world,  might  on  occasion  smooth 
over  social  roughnesses  which  the  President  himself 
would  hardly  have  noticed.  Nicolay,  too,  prized  the 
frank  nature  and  quick  intelligence  of  the  friend  of  his 
boyhood.  It  meant  much  for  him  to  have  an  assist 
ant  who  was  at  once  congenial  and  willing  and  versa 
tile. 

So  John  Hay  said  good-bye  to  his  uncle's  law  office, 
and  to  the  young  women  who  cherished  his  verses, 
and  to  his  parents  and  friends  at  Warsaw;  and  on 
February  n,  1861,  he  started  with  Lincoln  and  the 
presidential  party  on  their  roundabout  journey  to 
Washington.  The  President's  last  words  to  his 
neighbors,  before  the  train  steamed  out  of  Spring 
field,  were  full  of  sadness  and  affection,  as  became 


THE  NEW  LIFE  89 

one  who  realized  the  weight  of  the  burden  he  was  go 
ing  away  to  take  up,  and  the  quick  alternations  of 
life  and  death.  What  young  Hay  thought  at  that 
moment  we  are  not  told ;  but  it  would  be  strange  if 
he  were  not  thrilled  at  the  prospect  of  plunging 
into  a  new  world,  of  unknown  and  alluring  pos 
sibilities.  Like  many  another  poet  in  embryo,  he  was 
soon  to  feel  the  exhilaration  which  comes  from  doing 
after  dreaming. 


CHAPTER  V 

FIRST   MONTHS   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  read  his  Inaugural 
Address  at  the  Capitol  on  March  4,  1861, 
Since  Washington's  Farewell,  no  presidential  utter 
ance  had  moved  the  country  so  deeply  as  that,  and  of 
Lincoln's  many  stirring  passages  in  it  none  equaled 
his  concluding  lines:  "  I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not 
enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies. 
Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not 
break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of 
memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield,  and  pa 
triot  grave,  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone, 
all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of 
the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  they  surely  will 
be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature."  1  When  John 
Hay's  friends  and  classmates  read  that  paragraph, 
they  believed  that  he  wrote  it  —  so  high  was  their 
estimate  of  his  poetic  talents  and  so  little  as  yet  did 
they  discern  the  literary  genius  of  Lincoln. 

From  that  day  Nicolay  and  Hay  lived  in  the  White 
House,  within  a  moment's  call  of  the  President.  The 

1  The  passage  was  written  by  Lincoln,  who  transmuted  Seward's 
suggestion  into  pure  gold.  N.  &  H.,  in,  336,  341  n. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    91 

small  chambers  assigned  to  them  were  shabby  and 
scantily  furnished;  but  the  secretaries  were  young 
and  used  to  roughing  it,  and  they  were  soon  too  busy 
to  heed  passing  discomforts.  Nicolay  had  charge  of 
the  more  official  correspondence.  Hay,  who  often  took 
his  share  of  this  burden,  wrote  letters,  saw  callers, 
went  on  errands  to  the  Departments,  kept  in  touch 
with  personages  political,  military,  and  social,  and, 
in  case  of  need,  escorted  Mrs.  Lincoln  when  she  drove 
out,  or  amused  the  Lincoln  boys  on  a  rainy  day. 
He  made  himself  very  quickly  a  member  of  the  fam 
ily;  and  Lincoln,  the  most  unconventional  of  men, 
welcomed  his  young,  versatile,  and  trustworthy  as 
sistant,  whose  willingness  and  common  sense  could 
always  be  depended  upon. 

During  the  first  weeks  of  the  Administration, 
suspense  prevailed  in  the  White  House  and  through 
out  the  Government.  Men  realized  that  the  rela 
tions  with  the  Southern  States  were  growing  worse, 
not  better,  but  they  still  regarded  with  incredulity 
the  likelihood  of  a  civil  war.  Lincoln  had  pledged 
himself  not  to  be  the  aggressor:  many  anxious 
Northerners  still  hoped  that  even  fanatical  Seces 
sionists  would  stop  short  before  striking  the  irrevoc 
able  blow.  News  of  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter  in 
Charleston  Harbor,  on  April  12,  and  of  its  evacua 
tion  by  the  Union  commander  on  April  14,  dispelled 


92  JOHN  HAY 

the  last  doubt.  On  April  15  President  Lincoln  is 
sued  his  call  for  75,000  volunteers. 

Three  days  later  Hay  records  in  his  Diary:  "The 
White  House  is  turned  into  barracks.  Jim  Lane  1 
marshaled  his  Kansas  warriors  to-day  at  Willard's 
and  placed  them  at  the  disposal  of  Major  Hunter, 
who  turned  them  to-night  into  the  East  Room.  It 
is  a  splendid  company  —  worthy  such  an  armory. 
Besides  the  Western  Jayhawkers  it  comprises  some 
of  the  best  material  in  the  East.  Senator  Pomeroy 
and  old  Anthony  Bleecker  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder 
in  the  ranks.  Jim  Lane  walked  proudly  up  and 
down  the  ranks  with  a  new  sword  that  the  Major 
had  given  him.  The  Major  has  made  me  his  aid, 
and  I  labored  under  some  uncertainty,  as  to  whether 
I  should  speak  to  privates  or  not. 

"The  President  to-day  received  this  dispatch,  'We 
entreat  you  to  take  immediate  measures  to  protect 
American  Commerce  in  the  Southern  waters  and 
we  respectfully  suggest  the  charter  or  purchase  of 
steamers  of  which  a  number  can  be  fitted  from  here 
without  delay/  Signed  by  Grinnell  Minturn  and 
many  others  of  the  leading  business  men  of  the 
place.  The  President  immediately  sent  for  the  Cabi 
net.  They  came  together  and  Seward  2  answered  the 

1  James  H.  Lane,  of  Kansas,  border-fighter,  United  States  Sena 
tor,  and  brigadier-general  of  volunteers. 

2  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    93 

dispatch  in  these  words :  '  Dispatch  to  the  President 
received  and  letter  under  consideration.  W.  H. 
Seward.' 

"All  day  the  notes  of  preparation  have  been  heard 
at  the  public  buildings  and  the  armories.  Every 
body  seems  to  be  expecting  a  son  or  a  brother  or 
1  young  man'  in  the  coming  regiments. 

"To-night,  Edward  brought  me  a  card  from  Mrs. 
Ann  Stephens  expressing  a  wish  to  see  the  President 
on  matters  concerning  his  personal  safety.  As  the 
Ancient l  was  in  bed  I  volunteered  to  receive  the  har 
rowing  communication.  Edward  took  me  to  a  little 
room  adjoining  the  Hall  and  I  waited.  Mrs.  Stephens 
who  is  neither  young  nor  yet  fair  to  any  miraculous 
extent,  came  in  leading  a  lady  —  who  was  a  little  of 
both  —  whom  she  introduced  to  me  as  Mrs.  Colonel 
Lander.2  I  was  delighted  at  this  chance  interview 
with  the  Medea,  the  Julia,  the  Mona  Lisa  of  my 
stage-struck  days.  After  many  hesitating  and  bash 
ful  trials,  Mrs.  Lander  told  the  impulse  that  brought 
her.  Some  young  Virginian  --  long-haired,  swagger 
ing,  chivalrous,  of  course,  and  indiscreet  friend  —  had 
come  into  town  in  great  anxiety  for  a  new  saddle, 
and  meeting  her,  had  said  that  he  and  half  a  dozen 
others,  including  a  daredevil  guerrilla  from  Rich- 

1  One  of  the  pet  names  which  Hay  and  Nicolay  gave  the  President. 

2  A  popular  actress  of  that  generation. 


94  JOHN  HAY 

mond,  named  F.,  would  do  a  thing  within  forty-eight 
hours  that  would  ring  through  the  world.  Connect 
ing  this  central  fact  with  a  multiplicity  of  attendant 
details,  she  concluded  that  the  President  was  either 
to  be  assassinated  or  captured.  She  ended  by  re 
newing  her  protestations  of  earnest  solicitude  min 
gled  with  fears  of  the  impropriety  of  the  step.  Lander 
has  made  her  very  womanly  since  he  married  her. 
Imagine  Jean  M.  Davenport  a  blushing,  hesitating 
wife. 

"They  went  away,  and  I  went  to  the  bedside  of 
the  Chief  couche.  I  told  him  the  yarn.  He  quietly 
grinned. 

"Going  to  my  room,  I  met  the  Captain.  He  was 
a  little  boozy  and  very  eloquent.  He  dilated  on  the 
troubles  of  the  time  and  bewailed  the  existence  of  a 
garrison  in  the  White  House  'to  give  eclat  to  Jim 
Lane/ 

"Hill  Lamon  came  in  about  midnight  saying 
that  Cash.  Clay  was  drilling  a  splendid  company  at 
Willard's  Hall  and  that  the  town  was  in  a  general 
tempest  of  enthusiastic  excitement;  which  not  being 
very  new,  I  went  to  sleep. " 

If  John  Hay  had  been  able  to  continue  during  the 
succeeding  four  years  to  write  day  by  day  the  White 
House  Chronicle  as  amply  as  this  first  day  of  actual 
war  preparations,  he  would  have  left  not  only  the 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    95 

most  complete,  but  the  most  varied  and  picturesque 
of  records. 

April  19  also  was  filled  with  business  and  alarms. 

"Early  this  morning"  (Hay  writes),  "  I  consulted 
with  Major  Hunter  as  to  measures  proper  to  be 
taken  in  the  matter  of  guarding  the  House.  He  told 
me  that  he  would  fulfill  any  demand  I  should  make. 
The  forenoon  brought  us  news  of  the  destruction  of 
government  property  at  Harper's  Ferry.  It  de 
lighted  the  Major,  regarding  it  as  a  deadly  blow  at 
the  prosperity  of  the  recusant  Virginia. 

"  I  called  to  see  Joe  Jefferson  and  found  him  more 
of  a  gentleman  than  I  had  expected.  A  very  intel 
lectual  face,  thin  and  eager,  with  large,  intense  blue 
eyes,  the  lines  firm,  and  the  hair  darker  than  I  had 
thought.  I  then  went  to  see  Mrs.  Lander  and  made 
her  tell  the  story  all  over  again  'just  by  way  of  a 
slant.'  Miss  Lander  the  sculptor  was  there. 

"Coming  up,  I  found  the  streets  full  of  the  bruit 
of  the  Baltimore  mob  and  at  the  White  House  was 
a  nervous  gentleman  who  insisted  on  seeing  the 
President  to  say  that  a  mortar  battery  had  been 
planted  on  the  Virginia  heights  commanding  the 
town.  He  separated  himself  from  the  information 
and  instantly  retired.  I  had  to  do  some  very  dexter 
ous  lying  to  calm  the  awakened  fears  of  Mrs.  Lin 
coln  in  regard  to  the  assassination  suspicion. 


96  JOHN  HAY 

11  After  tea  came  Partridge  and  Petterbridge  from 
Baltimore.  They  came  to  announce  that  they  had 
taken  possession  of  the  Pikesville  Arsenal  in  the 
name  of  the  Government —  to  represent  the  feeling 
of  the  Baltimore  conservatives  in  regard  to  the  pre 
sent  imbroglio  there  —  and  to  assure  the  President 
of  the  entire  fidelity  of  the  Governor  and  the  State 
authorities.  The  President  showed  them  Hicks  l  and 
Brown's2  dispatch,  which  [read]:  'Send  no  troops 
here.  The  authorities  here  are  loyal  to  the  Consti 
tution.  Our  police  force  and  local  militia  will  be  suf 
ficient/  Meaning,  as  they  all  seemed  to  think,  that 
they  wanted  no  Washington  troops  to  preserve  order, 
but,  as  Seward  insists,  that  no  more  troops  must  be 
sent  through  the  city.  Scott 3  seemed  to  agree  with 
Seward,  and  his  answer  to  a  dispatch  of  inquiry  was: 
'  Governor  Hicks  has  no  authority  to  prevent  troops 
from  passing  through  Baltimore/  Seward  inter 
polated:  'No  right/  Partridge  and  Petterbridge 
seemed  both  loyal  and  hopeful.  They  spoke  of  the 
danger  of  the  North  being  roused  to  fury  by  the 
bloodshed  of  to-day,  and  pouring  in  an  avalanche 
over  the  border.  The  President  most  solemnly  as 
sured  them  that  there  was  no  danger.  'Our  people 
are  easily  influenced  by  reason '  (said  he) .  '  They  have 

1  Thomas  H.  Hicks,  Governor  of  Maryland. 

2  George  W.  Brown,  Mayor  of  Baltimore. 

3  General  Winfield  Scott,  commanding  the  United  States  Army. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    97 

determined  to  prosecute  this  matter  with  energy,  but 
with  the  most  temperate  spirit.  You  are  entirely 
safe  from  invasion/ 

"Wood  came  up  to  say  that  young  Henry  saw  a 
steamer  landing  troops  off  Fort  Washington.  I  told 
the  President.  Seward  immediately  drove  to  Scott's. 

"Miss  Dix  called  to-day,  to  offer  services  in  the 
Hospital  branch.  She  makes  the  most  munificent 
and  generous  offers." 

Events  followed  one  another  so  rapidly  that  the 
White  House  had  no  repose,  night  or  day.  Alarmists, 
cranks,  wiseacres  beset  the  hall  and  corridors  and 
strove  to  reach  the  President's  office.  The  Potomac, 
according  to  rumors,  was  infested  by  suspicious- 
looking  craft.  Every  one  asked  whether  Washington 
could  be  held,  in  case  the  Secessionists  should  make 
a  sudden  dash  upon  it.  Anxiety  lest  the  mob  should 
capture  the  White  House  itself  and  carry  off  the 
President,  kept  cropping  up.  Hay  had  under  his 
special  care  the  protection  of  both  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
the  Executive  Mansion.  "About  midnight,"  he 
says,  "we  made  a  tour  of  the  house.  Hunter  and  the 
Italian  exile,  Vivaldi,  were  quietly  sleeping  on  the 
floor  of  the  East  Room,  and  a  young  and  careless 
guard  loafed  around  the  furnace  fires  in  the  base 
ment.  Good-looking  and  energetic  young  fellows, 
too  good  to  be  food  for  gunpowder,  —  if  anything  is." 


98  JOHN  HAY 

The  next  day  he  "went  up  to  see  the  Massachu 
setts  troops  quartered  in  the  Capitol.  The  scene  was 
very  novel.  The  contrast  was  very  painful  between 
the  gray-haired  dignity  that  filled  the  Senate  Cham 
ber  when  I  saw  it  last,  and  the  present  throng  of 
bright-looking  Yankee  boys,  the  most  of  them  bear 
ing  the  signs  of  New  England  rusticity  in  voice  and 
manner,  scattered  over  the  desks,  chairs,  and  gal 
leries,  some  loafing,  many  writing  letters  slowly  and 
with  plough-hardened  hands,  or  with  rapid-glancing 
clerkly  fingers,  while  Grow  l  stood  patiently  by  the 
desk  and  franked  for  everybody." 

The  mobbing  of  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  Regi 
ment  on  its  passage  through  Baltimore,  on  April  19, 
and  the  break  in  that  city  of  communications  be 
tween  Washington  and  the  loyal  North,  caused 
feverish  agitation  for  several  days.  Unless  the  Union 
troops  could  come  through,  the  State  of  Maryland 
might  not  only  fall  into  the  control  of  the  Secession 
ists,  but  might  send  an  invading  force  against  the 
Capital.  If  this  were  joined  there  by  an  attacking 
column  from  Virginia,  how  could  the  town  be  saved? 
Only  when  the  Northern  volunteers  began  to  arrive 
by  roundabout  routes  did  the  alarm  subside. 

Through  it  all  Lincoln  seemed  unruffled,  though 

1  Galusha  A.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania,  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    99 

inwardly  he  was  in  great  distress.  A  deputation  of 
leading  citizens  of  Baltimore  waited  on  the  President 
and  begged  him  not  to  persist  in  sending  troops  by 
way  of  their  city,  because  the  mob  was  unmanage 
able;  but  these  "whining  traitors,"  as  Hay  calls 
them,  promised  that  the  loyal  regiments  should  cross 
the  State  unmolested  if  they  would  avoid  Baltimore. 
In  the  interest  of  conciliation,  the  President  con 
sented  ;  but  he  declared  that  he  would  not  again 
interfere  with  the  war  measures  of  the  army. 

Secretary  Seward,  more  excited  and  less  concilia 
tory,  felt  sure  that  the  New  York  Seventh  Regiment 
could  cut  their  way  through  three  thousand  rioters ; 
and  he  protested  "that  Baltimore  delenda  est,  and 
other  things/'  Hay  adds  with  characteristic  humor. 
But  before  Baltimore  could  be  deleted,  the  Govern 
ment  must  have  at  its  disposal  the  very  regiments  to 
which  Baltimore  barred  the  way. 

Old  General  Spinner,  too,  "was  fierce  and  jubi 
lant  "  at  the  news  which  seemed  to  him  to  hold  out 
the  pleasure  of  destroying  traitors  everywhere.  "  No 
frenzied  poet,"  writes  Hay,  "ever  predicted  the  ruin 
of  a  hostile  house  with  more  energy  and  fervor  than 
he  issued  the  rescript  against  Baltimore.  .  .  .  He  was 
peculiarly  disgusted  with  the  impertinence  of  Dela 
ware.  'The  contemptible  little  neighborhood,  with 
out  population  enough  for  a  decent  country  village, 


ioo  JOHN  HAY 

gets  up  on  her  hind  legs  and  talks  about  armed  neu 
trality.  The  only  good  use  for  traitors  is  to  hang 
them.  They  are  worth  more  dead  than  alive/  Thus 
the  old  liberty-loving  Teuton  raged." 

At  length,  on  April  25,  the  blockade  was  raised. 
The  Seventh  New  York  came  through  to  the  Capital 
without  damage,  and  on  the  next  day  Massachu 
setts  and  Rhode  Island  troops  arrived  in  large  num 
bers.  "Those  who  were  in  Washington  on  that 
Thursday,  April  25, "  writes  Hay,  "  will  never  during 
their  lives,  forget  the  event."  1  From  that  time  on 
the  transportation  of  Northern  regiments  across 
Baltimore  ceased  to  be  opposed. 

On  the  25th,  Hay  records  that  the  President,  who 
"seemed  to  be  in  a  pleasant,  hopeful  mood,"  said: 
"  I  intend,  at  present,  always  leaving  an  opportunity 
for  change  of  mind,  to  fill  Fortress  Monroe  with  men 
and  stores;  blockade  the  ports  effectually;  provide 
for  the  entire  safety  of  the  Capital ;  keep  them  quietly 
employed  in  this  way,  and  then  go  down  to  Charles 
ton  and  pay  her  the  little  debt  we  are  owing  her." 

The  President  would  not,  however,  countenance 
severity  until  conciliation  had  failed.  Witness  this 
memorandum,  also  dated  April  25:  — 

"General  Butler  has  sent  an  imploring  request  to 
the  President  to  be  allowed  to  bag  the  whole  nest  of 
1  N.  &.  H.,  iv,  156. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     101 

traitorous  Maryland  legislators  and  bring  them  in 
triumph  here.  This  the  Tycoon,  wishing  to  observe 
every  comity  even  with  a  recusant  State,  forbade/' 

Hay's  hurried  pen-portraits  of  the  actors  in  this 
strange  drama,  as  the  examples  I  have  cited  show, 
possess  the  life-likeness  of  latter-day  snap-shots.  He 
has  not  only  the  knack  of  drawing  vividly  with  a  few 
strokes,  but  also  a  store  of  humor,  which  he  sprays 
over  them  like  a  fixative.  Thus,  after  calling  on 
Governor  William  Sprague,  of  Rhode  Island,  he  re 
cords:  "A  small,  insignificant  youth,  who  -  -  his 
place ;  but  who  is  certainly  all  right  now.  He  is  very 
proud  of  his  company,  of  its  wealth  and  social 
standing." 

Carl  Schurz,  the  German  Liberal,  who  sought  re 
fuge  as  an  exile  to  the  United  States,  and  in  a  few 
years  was  transformed  into  one  of  the  most  genuine 
American  patriots  of  his  time,  is  often  referred  to  by 
Hay,  who  writes  on  April  26:  "  Carl  Schurz  was  here 
to-day.  He  spoke  with  wild  enthusiasm  of  his  desire 
to  mingle  in  the  war.  He  has  great  confidence  in  his 
capability  of  arousing  the  enthusiasm  of  the  young. 
He  contemplates  the  career  of  a  great  guerrilla  chief 
with  ardent  longing.  He  objects  to  the  taking  of 
Charleston  and  advises  foraging  on  the  interior 
States.  .  .  .  The  Seventh  Regiment  band  played  glo 
riously  on  the  shaven  lawn  at  the  south  front  of  the 


102  JOHN  HAY 

Executive  Mansion.  The  scene  was  very  beautiful. 
Through  the  luxuriant  grounds,  the  gayly  dressed 
crowd  idly  strolled,  soldiers  loafed  on  the  prome 
nades,  the  martial  music  filled  the  sweet  air  with 
vague  suggestion  of  heroism,  and  C.  Schurz  and  the 
President  talked  war/' 

On  April  29  we  have  this  entry:  "Going  into  Nico- 
lay's  room  this  morning,  C.  Schurz  and  J.  Lane  were 
sitting.  Jim  was  at  the  window,  filling  his  soul  with 
gall  by  steady  telescopic  contemplation  of  a  Seces 
sion  flag  impudently  flaunting  over  a  roof  in  Alexan 
dria.  '  Let  me  tell  you/  said  he  to  the  elegant  Teuton, 
'we  have  got  to  whip  these  scoundrels  like  hell,  C. 
Schurz.  They  did  a  good  thing  stoning  our  men  at 
Baltimore  and  shooting  away  the  flag  at  Sumter.  It 
has  set  the  great  North  a-howling  for  blood,  and 
they'll  have  it/ 

'"I  heard/  said  Schurz,  'you  preached  a  sermon 
to  your  men  yesterday/ 

" ' No,  sir!  this  is  not  time  for  preaching.  When  I 
went  to  Mexico  there  were  four  preachers  in  my  regi 
ment.  In  less  than  a  week  I  issued  orders  for  them 
all  to  stop  preaching  and  go  to  playing  cards.  In  a 
month  or  so,  they  were  the  biggest  devils  and  best 
fighters  I  had/ 

"An  hour  afterwards,  C.  Schurz  told  me  he  was 
going  home  to  arm  his  clansmen  for  the  wars.  He  has 


FIRST   MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     103 

obtained  three  months*  leave  of  absence  from  his 
diplomatic  duties,  and  permission  to  raise  a  cavalry 
regiment.  I  doubt  the  propriety  of  the  movement. 
He  will  make  a  wonderful  land  pirate;  bold,  quick, 
brilliant,  and  reckless.  He  will  be  hard  to  control  and 
difficult  to  direct.  Still,  we  shall  see.  He  is  a  won 
derful  man." 

A  fortnight  later,  while  the  Marine  Band  played 
on  the  south  lawn,  Schurz  sat  with  Lincoln  on  the 
balcony.  "  After  the  President  had  kissed  some  thou 
sand  children,  Carl  went  into  the  library  and  devel 
oped  a  new  accomplishment.  He  played  with  great 
skill  and  feeling,  sitting  in  the  dusk  twilight  at  the 
piano  until  the  President  came  by  and  took  him 
down  to  tea.  Schurz  is  a  wonderful  man.  An  orator, 
a  soldier,  a  philosopher,  an  exiled  patriot,  a  skilled 
musician !  He  has  every  quality  of  romance  and  of 
romantic  picturesqueness." 

The  evident  spell  which  Carl  Schurz  cast  over 
John  Hay  was  not  accidental.  Schurz,  though  less 
than  ten  years  older  than  Hay,  had  seen  and  done 
many  things.  Uprooted  from  his  native  soil,  he  was 
flourishing  in  the  land  of  his  adoption.  He  embodied 
versatility,  carried  beyond  the  stage  of  the  dilettante 
to  that  of  the  master;  he  was  a  cosmopolite.  To  be 
versatile  and  cosmopolitan  were  instincts  which 
Nature  had  planted  in  John  Hay  at  his  birth  — 


104  JOHN  HAY 

ideals  toward  which  he  had  been  unconsciously  grop 
ing  since  his  earliest  boyhood. 

So  Schurz  fascinated  him:  but  the  person  who 
dominated  him  from  his  first  day  in  the  White  House 
was  Lincoln.  At  the  outset,  the  President's  homeli 
ness,  which  was,  in  fact,  primal  simplicity,  must  have 
amused  him :  for  Hay  had  a  keen  eye  for  social  dis 
tinctions  and  was  already  well  versed  in  the  lore  of 
manners  which  opens  doors  that  neither  birth,  wealth, 
nor  genius  can  unlock.  That  the  former  rail-splitter 
should  occupy  a  position  in  which,  among  his  other 
functions,  he  was  head  of  the  official  society  of  the 
Capital  of  the  Nation,  must  have  tickled  Hay's  sense 
of  the  comic.  But  soon  Lincoln's  great  qualities  — 
his  patience  and  love  of  justice,  his  readiness  to  lis 
ten,  his  fortitude  —  impressed  the  young  secretary. 
Lincoln's  supreme  naturalness,  too,  could  not  be  re 
sisted  by  any  one  who  looked  below  the  surface.  Hay 
loved  humor,  and  here  was  Nature's  master  humor 
ist  of  that  age;  Hay  loved  wit,  and  here  was  a  mind 
of  singular  penetration  and  clearness,  which  saw 
right  to  the  heart  of  principles  and  could  state  them 
in  language  that  a  child  understood.  One  by  one,  the 
best  minds  in  Washington  came  into  contact  with 
Lincoln;  he  met  them  squarely  and  seldom  failed 
to  expose  their  fallacy,  if  there  were  one,  or  to  up 
hold  his  own  decision,  if  he  approved  it,  by  a  phrase 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     105 

or  story  not  to  be  forgotten.  The  speeches  of  the 
famous  orators  at  the  Capitol  have  faded;  Lincoln's 
remain.  Thanks  to  his  corrections,  the  State  papers 
of  the  elegant  Seward  are  still  read ;  and  Sumner  also, 
the  chief  academic  orator  in  Congress,  might  have 
profited  if  he  had  condescended  to  take  the  untu 
tored  Westerner  for  a  schoolmaster. 

Hay  and  Nicolay,  drawn  to  Lincoln  by  his  unusual 
geniality,  little  suspected  at  first  that  he  was  destined 
to  be,  through  his  unique  combination  of  character 
and  ability,  the  savior  of  the  Republic.  To  each 
other  they  referred  to  him  familiarly  as  "the  An 
cient,"  or  "the  Tycoon ":  and  Hay,  at  least,  though 
full  of  veneration,  sometimes  made  merry  over  the 
Chief's  oddities.  The  Diary  abounds  in  glimpses  of 
Lincoln  during  the  critical  month  of  April. 

If  ever  a  ruler  had  an  excuse  for  showing  anxiety, 
Lincoln  had  at  that  moment.  Fort  Sumter  fell  on 
April  15;  on  the  I7th,  Virginia  seceded;  on  the  i8th, 
the  Union  troops  retired  from  Harper's  Ferry  and 
its  arsenal;  on  the  iQth,  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  was 
mobbed  in  Baltimore,  and  then  followed  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  railroad  bridges  and  the  cutting  of  the 
telegraphs;  on  the  2Oth,  Robert  E.  Lee,  whose  ap 
pointment  as  commander  of  the  Northern  Army  was 
pending,  went  over  to  Virginia,  and  drew  a  large 
number  of  army  and  navy  officers  with  him  to  the 


io6  JOHN  HAY 

South;  on  the  2Oth,  also,  the  Gosport  Arsenal  had 
to  be  abandoned.  Yet  in  public  Lincoln  kept  up  his 
usual  manner,  and  so  successfully  that  strangers 
thought  him  either  indifferent  or  shallow.  Only  once, 
in  his  private  office,  after  peering  long  down  the 
Potomac  for  the  ships  which  were  to  bring  the  troops, 
believing  himself  to  be  alone,  he  exclaimed,  "  with 
irrepressible  anguish,  'Why  don't  they  come!  Why 
don't  they  come!" 

The  next  day,  when  some  battered  soldiers  of  the 
Sixth  Massachusetts  called  on  him,  he  "fell  into  a 
tone  of  irony  to  which  only  intense  feeling  ever 
drove  him :  '  I  begin  to  believe,'  he  said, '  that  there  is 
no  North.  The  Seventh  Regiment  is  a  myth.  Rhode 
Island  is  another.  You  are  the  only  real  thing.'"  l 

The  young  secretary,  who  overheard  Lincoln's 
cry  of  anguish  and  was  present  at  this  interview, 
began  to  divine  the  depths  of  the  President's  nature. 

In  a  few  days,  the  tension  being  relieved,  Hay 
writes:  " Three  Indians  of  the  Pottawatomies  called 
to-day  upon  their  Great  Father.  The  President 
amused  them  greatly  by  airing  the  two  or  three  In 
dian  words  he  knew.  I  was  amused  by  his  awkward 
efforts  to  make  himself  understood  by  speaking  bad 
English;  e.g.,  'Where  live  now?  When  go  back 
Iowa?'" 

1  N.  &  H.,  iv,  152-53- 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     107 

Northern  newspapers  began  to  scold  at  the  incom 
petence  of  the  Administration,  and  the  New  York 
Times  advised  the  immediate  resignation  of  the 
Cabinet  and  warned  Lincoln  that  he  would  be  super 
seded:  but  that  sort  of  hostility  never  worried  him, 
and  he  joked  about  the  Times1  s  proposal  to  depose 
him. 

On  May  7  Hay  writes:  "I  went  in  to  give  the 
President  some  little  items  of  Illinois  news,  saying 
among  other  things  that  S.  was  behaving  very  badly. 
He  replied  with  emphasis  that  S.  was  a  miracle  of 
meanness;  calmly  looking  out  of  the  window  at  the 
smoke  of  two  strange  steamers  puffing  up  the  way, 
resting  the  end  of  the  telescope  on  his  toes  sublime." 

Hay  referred  to  Browning's  suggestion  that  the 
North  should  subjugate  the  South,  exterminate  the 
whites,  set  up  a  black  republic,  and  protect  the 
negroes  "while  they  raised  our  cotton." 

' '  Some  of  our  Northerners  seem  bewildered  and 
dazzled  by  the  excitement  of  the  hour,'"  Lincoln 
replied.  "'  Doolittle1  seems  inclined  to  think  that 
this  war  is  to  result  in  the  entire  abolition  of  slavery. 
Old  Colonel  Hamilton,  a  venerable  and  most  respect 
able  gentleman,  impresses  upon  me  most  earnestly 
the  propriety  of  enlisting  the  slaves  in  our  army/  (I 
told  him  his  daily  correspondence  was  thickly  inter- 
1  Senator  James  R.  Doolittle,  of  Wisconsin. 


io8  JOHN  HAY 

spersed  by  such  suggestions.)  'For  my  own  part/ 
he  said,  '  I  consider  the  central  idea  pervading  this 
struggle  is  the  necessity  that  is  upon  us  of  proving 
that  popular  government  is  not  an  absurdity.  We 
must  settle  this  question  now,  whether,  in  a  free  gov 
ernment,  the  minority  have  the  right  to  break  up 
the  government  whenever  they  choose.  If  we  fail, 
it  will  go  far  to  prove  the  incapability  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves.  There  may  be  one  considera 
tion  used  in  stay  of  such  final  judgment,  but  that  is 
not  for  us  to  use  in  advance:  That  is,  that  there  exists 
in  our  case  an  instance  of  a  vast  and  far-reaching  dis 
turbing  element,  which  the  history  of  no  other  free 
nation  will  probably  ever  present.  That,  however, 
is  not  for  us  to  say  at  present.  Taking  the  govern 
ment  as  we  found  it,  we  will  see  if  the  majority  can 
preserve  it." 

This  statement,  spoken  offhand  to  his  secretary, 
reveals  the  foundation  of  Lincoln's  judgment  on  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion :  there  was  at  stake  something 
more  precious  than  the  preservation  of  the  Union, 
something  more  urgent  than  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
-  and  that  was  Democracy.  Two  years  and  a  half 
later,  in  his  address  at  Gettysburg,  he  put  into  one 
imperishable  sentence  the  thought  of  which  this  is 
the  germ. 

Occasionally  Hay  jots  down  Lincoln's   literary 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     109 

preferences.  One  evening,  he  reports,  there  was 
much  talk  between  him  and  Seward  on  Daniel  Web 
ster,  "in  which  the  financial  sanssoucism  of  the  great 
man  was  strikingly  prominent.  Seward  thought  he 
would  not  live,  nor  Clay,  a  tithe  as  long  as  John 
Quincy  Adams.  The  President  disagreed  with  him, 
and  thought  Webster  will  be  read  forever." 

The  President's  unfashionable  habits  come  in  for 
playful  mention.  On  hearing  that  the  Honorable 
Robert  Bourke,  son  of  the  Irish  Earl  of  Mayo,  was 
about  to  visit  Washington,  Hay  writes  to  a  friend: 
11 1  hope  W.  will  find  it  out  and,  by  way  of  showing 
him  a  delicate  attention,  take  him  to  the  observa 
tional  settee  whence,  on  clear  afternoons,  is  to  be 
seen,  windows  favoring,  the  Presidential  ensarking 
and  bifurcate  dischrysalisizing."  (August  21,  1861.) 

It  was  well  that  Hay  gave  vent  to  his  humor;  be 
cause  the  burden  of  his  work  soon  became  oppres 
sive,  and  before  the  summer  was  far  advanced 
Washington,  which,  despite  its  unpaved  streets  and 
shanties  and  unhidden  squalor,  had  been  a  holiday 
city,  took  on  a  gloomy  air.  Regiments  poured  in 
from  all  parts  of  the  North  and  camped  in  the  open 
spaces.  Troops  marched  to  and  fro.  Munitions  and 
provisions  were  collected  and  despatched.  On  the 
Potomac  naval  preparations  went  forward.  Civilians 
in  government  employ  were  actually  busy,  and  their 


I  io  JOHN   HAY 

superiors,  cabinet  officers,  and  heads  of  bureaus,  be 
gan  to  look  careworn.  With  the  heat,  the  fashion 
able  residents,  and  the  families  of  officials,  fled  as 
usual  to  Northern  watering-places.  At  last  the  Amer 
ican  Capital  gave  itself  up  in  earnest  to  the  grim 
business  of  war. 

And  yet,  many  persons  still  doubted  whether  the 
conflict  would  be  either  general  or  long  drawn  out. 
Optimists  predicted  that  at  the  first  reverse  the 
Southern  Confederacy  would  collapse;  and,  accord 
ingly,  influential  newspapers  clamored  for  action, 
while  self-constituted  advisers  belabored  the  Presi 
dent  with  suggestions  and  berated  him  for  not  fol 
lowing  them.  The  Administration  had  a  foretaste 
of  what  a  free  press  is  capable  of  in  time  of  war.  The 
editor  of  a  metropolitan  daily  would  probably  shrink 
from  telling  a  dentist  how  to  fill  a  tooth,  and  even 
the  omniscient  reporter  of  a  country  weekly  might 
hesitate  to  instruct  a  surgeon  in  an  operation  for 
cancer;  but  both  these  gentlemen,  and  most  of  their 
neighbors  and  fellow  citizens,  feel  wholly  competent 
to  direct  lifelong  experts  in  the  highly  specialized 
and  intricate  art  of  war.  Yet  it  must  be  said  that,  as 
experts  were  few  in  1861,  advice  had  to  come  largely 
from  novices;  and  why  should  the  average  man,  who 
beheld  the  editor  or  politician  of  yesterday  given 
command  of  a  regiment  to-day,  consider  his  own 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     in 

opinions  on  the  conduct  of  the  campaign  as  worth 
less? 

Side  by  side  with  the  importunities  of  amateur 
strategists  went  the  nagging  of  political  wiseacres. 
Happy  Alexander  and  Caesar  and  Hannibal,  happy 
Marlborough  and  Napoleon !  Conducting  their  cam 
paigns  before  the  days  of  railroads  or  telegraphs, 
they  were  not  required  to  change  their  plans  from 
hour  to  hour  in  order  to  keep  pace  with  the  hysteri 
cal  fluctuations  of  the  public  at  home.  In  the  Amer 
ican  Civil  War  this  malign  influence  marred  the  mil 
itary  plans  to  an  extent  till  then  unprecedented. 
That  such  meddling  was  ^inevitable,  however,  seems 
to  be  John  Hay's  opinion;  for  he  approved,  if  he  did 
not  actually  write,  the  following  lines :  — 

"Historical  judgment  of  war  is  subject  to  an  in 
flexible  law,  either  very  imperfectly  understood  or 
very  constantly  lost  sight  of.  Military  writers  love  to 
fight  over  the  campaigns  of  history  exclusively  by 
the  rules  of  the  professional  chess-board,  always  sub 
ordinating,  often  totally  ignoring,  the  element  of 
politics.  This  is  a  radical  error.  Every  war  is  begun, 
dominated,  and  ended  by  political  considerations; 
without  a  nation,  without  a  government,  without 
money  or  credit,  without  popular  enthusiasm  which 
furnishes  volunteers,  or  public  support  which  en 
dures  conscription,  there  could  be  no  army  and  no 


112  JOHN  HAY 

war  —  neither  beginning  nor  end  of  methodical  hos 
tilities.  War  and  politics,  campaign  and  statecraft  are 
Siamese  twins,  inseparable  and  interdependent;  to 
talk  of  military  operations  without  the  direction  and 
interference  of  an  Administration  is  as  absurd  as  to 
plan  a  campaign  without  recruits,  pay,  or  rations."  1 

In  this  forcible  statement  Hay  filed  his  caveat 
against  the  censure,  which  has  been  widespread  and 
weighty,  of  the  direction  of  the  Union  campaigns 
from  Washington  and  of  the  sensitiveness  of  the  Ad 
ministration  to  political  exigencies. 

Both  these  conditions  sprang  up  as  soon  as  the 
volunteer  regiments  were  ready  for  service.  General 
Scott,  the  veteran  head  of  the  regular  army,  pro 
posed  his  "anaconda  plan,"  of  blockading  the  coast 
and  establishing  a  cordon  of  garrisons  down  the 
Mississippi,  a  device  by  which  he  thought  the  Con 
federacy  might  soon  be  strangled.  He  also  counseled 
delay  till  the  autumn.  The  North,  however,  clam 
ored  for  action.  It  felt  the  sting  of  the  humiliation 
of  Sumter  and  Baltimore  and  of  more  recent  rebuffs: 
it  believed  that  the  Government  was  now  strong 
enough  to  crush  the  Rebellion ;  it  remembered  that 
the  term  of  the  ninety-day  men  would  soon  run  out. 

Lincoln  recognized  the  need  of  keeping  public 

1  N.  &  H.,  iv,  359-60.   This  passage  seems  to  me  to  bear  Hay's 
impress. 


FIRST  MONTHS  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     113 

opinion  enthusiastic,  and,  having  made  every  mili 
tary  provision  for  a  successful  movement,  he  ordered 
an  advance.  Union  General  McDowell  was  to  engage 
Rebel  General  Beauregard  at  Manassas,  while  Union 
General  Patterson  crushed  Rebel  General  Johnston 
at  Winchester.  On  July  21  the  battle  was  fought  at 
Bull  Run;  but  the  incompetent  Patterson  had  al 
lowed  Johnston  to  slip  by  him,  and  McDowell,  being 
confronted  by  both  Beauregard  and  Johnston,  was 
utterly  beaten.  His  undisciplined  troops,  seized  by 
panic,  scampered  as  best  they  could  through  the 
darkness  and  the  rain  for  Washington,  nearly  thirty 
miles  off. 

Hay  describes  how  the  President  passed  that 
eventful  Sunday;  he  was  anxious  from  the  first,  but 
reassured  when  frequent  telegrams  reported  con 
tinued  success.  After  dinner  the  President  went  to 
General  Scott's  office,  only  to  find  that  burly  old 
gentleman  taking  his  afternoon  nap.  Scott  roused 
himself  long  enough  to  declare  that  all  must  go  well, 
and  then,  on  the  President's  departure,  he  returned 
to  sleep.  But  at  six  o'clock,  while  the  President  was 
out  driving,  Secretary  Seward  hurried  over  to  the 
White  House  with  a  telegram  announcing  that  the 
battle  was  lost  and  McDowell  routed,  and  to  urge 
that  steps  be  taken  to  save  the  Capital  from  the  pur 
suing  enemy.  All  night  long  Lincoln  stayed  in  his 


ii4  JOHN  HAY 

office  giving  directions,  reading  despatches,  or  listen 
ing  to  the  reports  of  eye-witnesses,  who  began  to 
reach  the  city  about  midnight. 

Monday,  the  226.  of  July,  was  one  of  the  dismalest 
days  Washington  had  ever  seen.  Before  afternoon 
the  news  spread  that  the  Rebels,  having  given  up 
the  pursuit,  were  not  about  to  attack  the  outposts; 
but  every  one  realized  that  the  war,  alternately 
dreaded  and  doubted  for  forty  years,  had  come  in 
earnest. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WAR  IN   EARNEST 

TO  sketch,  even  in  outline,  the  history  of  the 
Civil  War,  is  not  my  purpose:  for  this  is  a  life 
of  John  Hay,  and  the  war  interests  us  here  only  in 
so  far  as  it  concerns  him,  or  as  he  sheds  light  on  men 
and  events,  and  especially  on  Abraham  Lincoln. 
We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  how  quickly  he 
adapted  himself  to  his  new  situation.  There  is  no 
more  talk  of  his  being  doomed  to  waste  his  days  in 
the  materialistic,  unshorn  West;  no  suggestion  of  the 
poet  in  exile;  no  further  reference  to  filling  an  early 
grave.  He  had  neither  deserted  the  Muse  nor  re 
nounced  his  ideals:  he  had  simply  responded,  as  a 
healthy  young  man  should,  to  the  stimulation  which 
comes  with  action  in  a  supreme  cause. 

He  was  discovering  that  life  transcended  the 
fragments  and  echoes  of  it  which  passed  for  life  in 
his  books.  He  lay  now  under  the  spell  of  the  Deed. 
Having  among  his  many  talents  the  gift  of  keen  and 
enlightened  curiosity,  he  watched  men  with  the  in 
terest  with  which  one  follows  the  fortunes  of  the 
characters  in  a  novel  or  a  play.  He  was  a  sharp  ob 
server;  sophisticated,  chiefly  through  his  reading, 


ii6  JOHN  HAY 

but  not  cynical  :  and  he  found  unceasing  amusement 
in  human  eccentricities. 

Except  at  Paris  during  the  French  Revolution, 
there  was  never  such  a  strange  multitude,  jumbled 
and  incongruous,  gathered  in  a  modern  city  as 
that  which  swarmed  in  Washington  from  1861  to 
1865.  It  comprised  men  of  every  social  class:  toilers 
from  farm  and  shop  and  clerks  from  counting-rooms; 
Eastern  bankers  and  teachers  ;  Western  backwoods 
men,  miners,  and  adventurers.  It  was  swelled  by 
office-seekers  —  a  sordid  gang,  having  one  common 
instinct,  the  prehensile,  among  them  ;  and  by  unnum 
bered  contractors,  sutlers,  and  speculators.  Most 
conspicuous  of  all  was  the  endless  stream  of  volun 
teers,  who  flowed  in  at  first  by  companies  and  bat 
talions,  next  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  and 
so  on  up  to  hundreds  of  thousands  —  infantry,  cav 
alry,  artillery.  You  can  still  hear  the  incessant  tramp 
of  the  foot-soldiers  and  the  clatter  of  the  horse,  with 
the  roll  of  drum  and  rumble  of  cannon,  and  the  shrill, 
saucy  call  of  the  fifes:  on  they  go  over  the  bridges 
into  Virginia,  and  many  never  come  back. 

Amid  the  brutal  surge  of  life  swept  the  ever-broad 
ening  torrent  of  Death:  ambulances  and  wagons 
loaded  and  dripping  with  the  wounded;  hospitals 
bursting  with  bodies,  mutilated  but  still  alive,  haunts 
of  agony  or  delirium;  surgeons,  doctors,  nurses,  at 


WAR   IN  EARNEST  117 

work  till  they  dropped  exhausted;  hearses,  carts, 
caissons  bearing  coffins,  attended  by  few  or  no 
mourners,  on  the  hurried  transfer  to  the  cemetery, 
and  then  the  lowering  into  the  shallow  grave,  the 
clipped  sentences  of  blessing  from  the  minister  or 
the  volley  of  farewell ;  while  day  and  night  grief- 
stricken  fathers  and  frantic  mothers  were  searching 
for  their  sons,  or  at  least  for  the  maimed  corpses 
of  their  sons.  Through  it  all,  the  plot  of  the  world- 
drama  worked  itself  out. 

And  as  if  he  were  the  privileged  of  Destiny,  John 
Hay  watches  the  unfolding  of  the  spectacle  from  the 
White  House,  as  from  a  proscenium  box.  Nor  is  he  a 
mere  looker-on.  He  is  always  at  the  President's  right 
hand  to  do  the  President's  bidding.  What  he  sees 
and  what  he  hears  has  due  weight  in  shaping  the 
President's  decisions.  For  John  Hay  was  a  witness 
to  be  trusted:  discreet,  clear-sighted,  businesslike, 
and,  above  all,  sympathetic  to  Lincoln,  who  enjoyed 
equally  his  frankness  and  his  humor. 

After  Bull  Run,  work  at  the  White  House  re 
doubled,  the  conduct  of  the  war  taking  up  the  lion's 
share  of  energy.  The  capital  question  of  choosing 
officers  for  the  rapidly  swelling  army  arose  at  every 
turn.  Civilian  troops  had  to  be  commanded  by  ci 
vilian  colonels,  willing  but  necessarily  ignorant. 
The  higher  grades  were  often  filled  for  any  other 


n8  JOHN  HAY 

reason  except  the  military.  Politicians,  quick  to 
scent  profit  for  themselves,  secured  commissions  by 
the  same  methods  which  brought  them  political 
honors  and  lucre.  If  governors  of  States  could  not  re 
sist  the  pressure  of  aspiring  statesmen,  how  could  it 
be  expected  that  the  President  and  his  Secretary 
of  War  should  always  select  wisely  among  candi 
dates  of  whom  they  had  no  personal  knowledge? 
And  if  battles  were  fought  to  appease  public  clamor, 
why  was  it  not  logical  to  assign  brigadierships  to 
gentlemen  who  controlled  the  political  majority  of 
a  large  district,  or  even,  it  might  be,  of  a  doubtful 
State?  The  problem  of  1861,  be  it  remembered,  was 
to  secure,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  the  loyalty  of  every 
Northerner. 

To  the  historian  a  conversation  may  be  as  impor 
tant  as  a  battle.  Here,  for  instance,  is  Hay's  minute 
of  a  talk  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  disclosed  quite  can 
didly  his  conciliatory  policy  toward  the  South  before 
he  became  President. 

"  October  22,  1861.  At  Seward's  to-night  the  Presi 
dent  talked  about  Secession,  Compromise,  and  other 
such.  He  spoke  of  a  committee  of  Pseudo-Unionists 
coming  to  him  before  Inauguration  for  guarantees, 
etc.  He  promised  to  evacuate  Sumter  if  they  would 
break  up  their  Convention,  without  any  row  or  non 
sense.  They  demurred.  Subsequently,  he  renewed 


1  V 

u 


WAR   IN  EARNEST  119 

proposition  to  Summers  [?],  but  without  any  result. 
The  President  was  most  anxious  to  prevent  blood 
shed." 

On  November  8,  1861,  John  Hay  records  that  a 
"cheeky  letter"  has  just  been  received  from  Benja 
min  F.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  who,  with  charac 
teristic  modesty  writes  the  President :  - 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  — Gen'l  Wool  has  resigned.  Gen'l 
Fremont  must.  Gen'l  Scott  has  retired. 

I  have  an  ambition,  and  I  trust  a  laudable  one, 
to  be  Major-General  of  the  United  States  Army. 

Has  anybody  done  more  to  deserve  it?  No  one 
will  do  more.  May  I  rely  upon  you,  as  you  may  have 
confidence  in  me,  to  take  this  matter  into  considera 
tion? 

I  will  not  disgrace  the  position.  I  may  fail  in  its 
duties. 

Truly  yrs., 

BENJ.  F.  BUTLER. 

THE  PRESIDENT. 

P.S.  I  have  made  the  same  suggestion  to  others 
of  my  friends. 

This  was  a  specimen  letter,  illustrative  of  many. 
How  to  deal  with  the  rapaciously  immodest  is  the 
special  task  of  democracy.     In  earlier  times  they 


120  JOHN  HAY 

throve  by  the  monarch's  favor,  and  dutiful  subjects 
sought  no  other  explanation  of  their  prosperity; 
now,  their  promotion  accuses  the  public  itself. 

Hay's  early  references  to  McClellan  prepare  us 
for  that  commander's  subsequent  abysmal  failure. 
Called  to  Washington  on  July  26,  McClellan  took 
charge  of  organizing  into  a  fighting  army  the  troops, 
which  were  reaching  the  city  at  the  rate  of  a  regi 
ment  a  day.  For  that  work  he  possessed  uncommon 
ability,  and  to  this  was  added  the  knowledge  gained 
from  his  West  Point  training,  from  service  in  the 
regular  army,  and  from  inspection  of  the  European 
armies.  He  not  only  knew  what  was  to  be  done,  but 
he  had  the  art  of  persuading  everybody  that  he  was 
the  only  man  who  could  do  it.  His  self-esteem,  by 
nature  abnormally  developed,  swelled  at  last  into 
an  elephantiasis  of  the  ego.  But  among  the  hesita 
tions,  perplexities,  and  gropings  of  the  summer  of 
1 86 1,  the  value  of  McClellan's  self-assurance  was 
quite  as  obvious  as  that  of  his  technical  competence. 
The  Army  of  the  Potomac,  moulded  under  his  direc 
tion,  felt  for  him  an  enthusiasm  bordering  on  infatua 
tion  and  proof  against  the  disillusion  of  subsequent 
defeats.  Though  he  was  beaten  in  many  fights,  out 
generaled  in  his  plans  of  campaign,  and  outmarched 
and  baffled  by  inferior  forces,  and  though,  through 
a  palsy  of  the  will,  he  failed  to  convert  Antietam 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  121 

into  a  sweeping  victory,  —  perhaps  into  a  death 
blow  of  the  Rebellion,  — his  infatuated  supporters, 
persisting  in  claiming  that  his  primacy  as  a  com 
mander  was  still  unrivaled,  always  threw  the  blame 
on  others. 

Truth  to  tell,  from  the  day  he  came  to  Washington, 
McClellan  was  in  danger  of  being  smothered  by  adu 
lation.  The  North,  frantic  for  a  general  to  avenge  its 
defeats  and  to  put  down  Secession,  believed  that  in 
McClellan  it  had  the  man.  It  imputed  to  him  qual 
ities  he  never  possessed;  it  glorified  his  undoubted 
points  of  excellence;  it  sought  for  happy  parallels 
and  propitious  signs  to  confirm  its  confidence.  Na 
poleon  was  short  of  stature  —  so  was  "Little  Mac" ; 
Napoleon  was  young  and  self-reliant  —  so  was 
"Little  Mac":  what  could  be  more  logical  than  to 
continue  the  parallel  until  it  led  to  a  Marengo  and 
an  Austerlitz  for  "Little  Mac"?  McClellan  was  a 
Democrat;  and  this  enhanced  his  importance,  be 
cause  it  advertised  to  the  world  that  the  Northern 
Democrats  would  stand  by  the  Union. 

President  Lincoln  welcomed  McClellan's  coming, 
and  besides  giving  him  every  aid  in  forming  the 
army,  deferred  to  his  plans  and  methods.  Hay,  who 
had  a  young  man's  impatience  at  too  obtrusive  con 
ceit,  was  present  at  many  of  their  interviews,  and 
seems  very  early  to  have  doubted  "Little  Mac's". 

l£l*j{f*>        &>    ••/,<  ,/M    K°r.  ^ 

*s  }'  if   .  •  .-.,  •    .-•  •        ,<**.i..# 

'}    •    ^ 
•&-•  \*'*l  tf&v 


122  JOHN  HAY 

omniscience.  On  October  22,  1861,  he  writes  that 
the  President  and  the  General  talked  over  the  death 
of  Colonel  Baker  at  Leesburg. 

"McClellan  said:  'There  is  many  a  good  fellow 
that  wears  the  shoulder-straps  going  under  the  sod 
before  the  thing  is  over.  There  is  no  loss  too  great  to 
be  repaired.  If  I  should  get  knocked  on  the  head, 
Mr.  President,  you  will  put  another  man  immediately 
in  my  shoes.'  '  I  want  you  to  take  care  of  yourself/ 
said  the  President.  McClellan  seemed  very  hopeful 
and  confident  —  thought  he  had  the  enemy,  if  in 
force  or  not.  During  this  evening's  conversation, 
it  became  painfully  evident  that  he  had  no  plan 
nor  the  slightest  idea  of  what  Stone  l  was  about. " 

In  those  early  days  the  President  used  to  call  in 
formally  at  McClellan's  office  to  inquire  how  the 
work  was  going  or  to  make  suggestions.  At  one  of 
these  casual  calls,  on  October  10,  McClellan  said: 
"I  think  we  shall  have  our  arrangements  made  for 
a  strong  reconnoissance  about  Monday,  to  feel  the 
strength  of  the  enemy.  I  intend  to  be  careful  and  to 
do  as  well  as  possible.  Don't  let  them  hurry  me  is 
all  I  ask."  "You  shall  have  your  own  way  in  the 
matter,  I  assure  you,"  said  the  President,  and  went 
home. 

1  Brigadier-General  Charles  P.  Stone.  The  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff 
was  fought  on  the  preceding  day,  October  21,  1861. 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  123 

That  refrain,  ''Don't  let  them  hurry  me!"  was  to 
be  the  burden  of  McClellan's  talk  and  despatches 
throughout  his  service. 

A  few  days  later,  McClellan  traversed  Senator 
B.  F.  Wade's  opinion  that  an  unsuccessful  battle 
was  preferable  to  delay,  because  a  defeat  could  easily 
be  repaired  by  the  swarming  recruits.  [I]  "would 
rather  have  a  few  recruits  after  a  victory  than  a 
good  many  after  a  defeat."  Lincoln  regretted  the 
popular  impatience,  but  held  that  it  ought  to  be 
reckoned  with.  "'At  the  same  time,  General,'"  he 
said,  "'you  must  not  fight  till  you  are  ready.'  'I 
have  everything  at  stake,'  said  the  General;  'if  I 
fail,  I  will  not  see  you  again  or  anybody.'  '  I  have  a 
notion  to  go  out  with  you,  and  stand  or  fall  with  the 
battle,'"  Lincoln  replied. 

On  November  i,  McClellan  succeeded  Scott  in 
command  of  the  Army.  The  President  in  thanking 
him,  said:  — 

"I  should  be  perfectly  satisfied  if  I  thought  that 
this  vast  increase  of  responsibility  would  not  em 
barrass  you.'  'It  is  a  great  relief,  sir!  I  feel  as  if 
several  tons  were  taken  from  my  shoulders  to-day. 
I  am  now  in  contact  with  you  and  the  Secretary. 
I  am  not  embarrassed  by  intervention.'  'Well,'  says 
the  President,  '  draw  on  me  for  all  the  sense  I  have, 
and  all  the  information.  In  addition  to  your  present 


124  JOHN  HAY 

command,  the  supreme  command  of  the  Army 
will  entail  a  vast  labor  upon  you.'  'I  can  do  it  all/ 
McClellan  said  quietly." 

Hay  evidently  felt  that  this  sublime  assertion 
spoke  for  itself,  but  perhaps  McClellan  sounded 
more  conceited  than  he  intended.  On  November  n, 
Hay  notes  that  McClellan  promises  to  "feel"  the 
Rebels  on  the  next  day  —  the  first  of  many  such 
promises.  His  entry  for  November  13  reads:  — 

"I  wish  here  to  record  what  I  consider  a  portent 
of  evil  to  come.  The  President,  Governor  Seward, 
and  I  went  over  to  McClellan's  home  to-night.  The 
servant  at  the  door  said  the  General  was  at  the  wed 
ding  of  Colonel  Wheaton  at  General  Buell's  and 
would  soon  return.  We  went  in,  and  after  we  had 
waited  about  an  hour,  McClellan  came  in,  and  with 
out  paying  particular  attention  to  the  porter  who 
told  him  the  President  was  waiting  to  see  him,  went 
up-stairs,  passing  the  door  of  the  room  where  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  State  were  seated.  They 
waited  about  half  an  hour,  and  sent  once  more 
a  servant  to  tell  the  General  they  were  there;  and 
the  answer  came  that  the  General  had  gone  to 
bed. 

"I  merely  record  this  unparalleled  insolence  of 
epaulettes  without  comment.  It  is  the  first  indica 
tion  I  have  yet  seen  of  the  threatened  supremacy 


WAR  IN  EARNEST  125 

of  the  military  authorities.  Coming  home,  I  spoke 
to  the  President  about  the  matter,  but  he  seemed  not 
to  have  noticed  it  specially,  saying  it  were  better  at 
this  time  not  to  be  making  points  of  etiquette  and 
personal  dignity." 

It  was  this  invincible  patience,  called  by  some 
men  vacillation  and  by  others  attributed  to  obtuse- 
ness,  which  proved  in  the  end  one  source  of  Lincoln's 
mastery.  Patience,  the  least  showy  of  the  virtues, 
works  cumulatively;  but  what  she  does  endures. 
There  could  be  no  finer  example  of  the  contrast  be 
tween  shadow  and  substance  than  appeared  that 
winter  in  McClellan  and  Lincoln:  Little  Mac  self- 
confident,  idolized,  showered  with  laurels  before  his 
battles,  and  barely  condescending  to  listen  to  the 
advice  of  his  chief;  and  the  magnanimous  President, 
bent  on  hearing  all  sides,  suspending  judgment  until 
he  had  considered  every  fact,  and  loyally  supplying 
the  General  with  everything  he  demanded. 

Winter  passed,  spring  came,  the  nation  longed  to 
have  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  put  to  the  test,  but 
still  McClellan  delayed.  The  following  extracts  from 
Hay's  brief  notes  to  Nicolay,  absent  from  W'ashing- 
ton,  to  whom  he  wrote  as  confidentially  as  in  his 
Diary,  shows  how  the  young  secretary  felt:  - 

"  March  jj,  1862.  Little  Mac  sails  to-day  for 
down-river.  He  was  in  last  night  to  see  Tycoon. 


126  JOHN  HAY 

He  was  much  more  pleasant  and  social  in  manner 
than  formerly.  He  seems  to  be  anxious  for  the  good 
opinion  of  everyone/* 

"  Thursday  morning  [April  3d].  McClellan  is  in 
danger,  not  in  front,  but  in  rear.  The  President  is 
making  up  his  mind  to  give  him  a  peremptory7  order 
to  march.  It  is  disgraceful  to  think  how  the  little 
squad  at  Yorktown  keeps  him  at  bay." 

"  Friday,  April  4,  1862.  McClellan  is  at  last  in 
motion.  He  is  now  moving  on  Richmond.  The  secret 
is  very  well  kept.  Nobody  out  of  the  Cabinet  knows 
it  in  town." 

"April  p,  1862.  Glorious  news  comes  borne  on 
every  wind  but  the  South  Wind.  While  Pope  is  cross 
ing  the  turbid  and  broad  torrent  of  the  Mississippi 
in  the  blaze  of  the  enemy's  fire,  and  Grant  is  fighting 
the  overwhelming  legions  of  Buckner  at  Pittsburg, 
the  Little  Napoleon  sits  trembling  before  the  hand 
ful  of  men  at  Yorktown,  afraid  either  to  fight  or  run. 
Stanton  feels  devilish  about  it.  He  would  like  to 
remove  him,  if  he  thought  it  would  do." 

At  last  the  time  came  when  even  Lincoln's  pa 
tience  was  exhausted.  After  McClellan's  long  series 
of  blunders  on  the  Peninsula,  he  was  superseded  by 
Pope,  who,  at  the  end  of  August,  1862,  prepared  to 
strike  the  Confederate  Army.  On  August  30,  the 
very  day  when  Jackson  and  Longstreet  were  thrash- 


WAR  IN  EARNEST  127 

ing  Pope  at  Bull  Run,  Hay  rode  into  Washington 
from  the  Soldiers'  Home  with  Lincoln. 

"We  talked/'  he  says,  "about  the  state  of  things 
by  Bull  Run  and  Pope's  prospect.  The  President  was 
very  outspoken  in  regard  to  McClellan's  present  con 
duct.  He  said  that  really  it  seemed  to  him  that  Mc- 
Clellan  wanted  Pope  defeated.  He  mentioned  to  me 
a  dispatch  of  McClellan's  in  which  he  proposed,  as 
one  plan  of  action,  to '  leave  Pope  to  get  out  of  his  own 
scrape  and  devote  ourselves  to  securing  Washing 
ton.'  He  also  spoke  of  McClellan's  dreadful  panic 
in  the  matter  of  Chain  Bridge,  which  he  had  ordered 
blown  up  the  night  before,  but  which  order  had  been 
countermanded ;  and  also  of  his  incomprehensible  in 
terference  with  Franklin's  corps,  which  he  recalled 
once,  and  then,  when  they  had  been  sent  ahead  by 
Halleck's  order,  begged  permission  to  recall  them 
again;  and  only  desisted  after  Halleck's  sharp  injunc 
tion  to  push  them  ahead  until  they  whipped  some 
thing,  or  got  whipped  themselves.  The  President 
seemed  to  think  him  a  little  crazy.  Envy,  jealousy, 
and  spite  are  probably  a  better  explanation  of  his 
present  conduct.  He  is  constantly  sending  dis 
patches  to  the  President  and  Halleck  asking  what 
is  his  real  position  and  command.  He  acts  as  chief 
alarmist  and  grand  marplot  of  the  army." 

Halleck,  on  the  contrary,  the  President  said,  had 


128  JOHN  HAY 

no  prejudices.  "[He]  is  wholly  for  the  service.  He 
does  not  care  who  succeeds  or  who  fails,  so  the  ser 
vice  is  benefited. 

"Later  in  the  day  we  were  in  Halleck's  room. 
Halleck  was  at  dinner,  and  Stanton  came  in  while 
we  were  waiting  for  him,  and  carried  us  off  to  dinner. 
A  pleasant  little  dinner  and  a  pretty  wife  as  white 
and  cold  and  motionless  as  marble,  whose  rare  smiles 
seemed  to  pain  her.  Stanton  was  loud  about  the 
McClellan  business.  He  was  unqualifiedly  severe 
upon  McClellan.  He  said  that  after  these  battles 
there  should  be  one  court-martial,  if  never  any  more. 
He  said  that  nothing  but  foul  play  could  lose  us  this 
battle,  and  that  it  rested  with  McClellan  and  his 
friends.  Stanton  seemed  to  believe  very  strongly 
in  Pope.  So  did  the  President,  for  that  matter/' 

Nevertheless,  after  Pope's  defeat  at  Second  Bull 
Run  the  President  concluded  that  McClellan  must 
be  restored  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

"'He  has  acted  badly  in  this  matter  [the  Presi 
dent  admitted  to  Hay],  but  we  must  use  what  tools 
we  have.  There  is  no  man  in  the  army  who  can  man 
these  fortifications  and  lick  these  troops  of  ours  into 
shape  half  as  well  as  he/  I  spoke  of  the  general  feel 
ing  against  McClellan  as  evinced  by  the  President's 
mail.  He  rejoined:  'Unquestionably  he  has  acted 


WAR   IN  EARNEST  129 

badly  toward  Pope.  He  wanted  him  to  fail.  That 
is  unpardonable.  But  he  is  too  useful  just  now  to 
sacrifice.'  At  another  time  he  said : '  If  he  can't  fight 
himself,  he  excels  in  making  others  ready  to  fight.' ' 

So  "Little  Mac"  once  more  led  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac;  not  for  long,  however,  because  after  his 
virtual  failure  at  Antietam  (September  17,  1862) 
and  his  allowing  Stuart  to  ride  round  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  and  raid  Chambersburg,  popular 
clamor  demanded  his  dismissal.  And  Lincoln,  the 
long-suffering,  convinced  that  the  time  had  come, 
relieved  him. 

Two  years  later  McClellan  was  the  Democratic 
nominee  for  President.  On  September  25,  Hay  re 
cords  that  a  letter  had  just  come  from  Nicolay,  who 
was  in  New  York,  stating  that  Thurlow  Weed,  the 
dominant  Republican  leader  in  New  York  State, 
with  whom  Nicolay  was  to  confer,  had  gone  to  Can 
ada.  When  Hay  showed  the  President  the  letter  he 
said:  "  I  think  I  know  where  Mr.  Weed  has  gone.  I 
think  he  has  gone  to  Vermont,  not  Canada.  I  will 
tell  you  what  he  is  trying  to  do.  I  have  not  as  yet 
told  anybody." 

And  then  Lincoln  proceeded  to  unfold  the  follow 
ing  story  of  a  remarkable  intrigue:  — 

' l  Some  time  ago  the  Governor  of  Vermont  came 
to  me  "on  business  of  importance,"  he  said.   I  fixed 


130  JOHN  HAY 

an  hour  and  he  came.  His  name  is  Smith.  He  is, 
though  you  would  not  think  it,  a  cousin  of  Baldy 
Smith.1  Baldy  is  large,  blond,  florid.  The  Governor 
is  a  little,  dark  sort  of  man.  This  is  the  story  he  told 
me,  giving  General  Baldy  Smith  as  his  authority:  — 

" '  When  General  McClellan  was  here  at  Washing 
ton  [in  1862]  B.  Smith  was  very  intimate  with  him. 
They  had  been  together  at  West  Point,  and  friends. 
McClellan  had  asked  for  promotion  for  Baldy  from 
the  President,  and  got  it.  They  were  close  and 
confidential  friends.  When  they  went  down  to  the 
Peninsula  their  same  intimate  relations  contin 
ued,  the  General  talking  freely  with  Smith  about 
all  his  plans  and  prospects,  until  one  day  Fernando 
Wood  and  one  other  [Democratic]  politician  from 
New  York  appeared  in  camp  and  passed  some  days 
with  McClellan. 

'"From  the  day  this  took  place  Smith  saw,  or 
thought  he  saw,  that  McClellan  was  treating  him 
with  unusual  coolness  and  reserve.  After  a  little 
while  he  mentioned  this  to  McClellan,  who,  after 
some  talk,  told  Baldy  he  had  something  to  show  him. 
He  told  him  that  these  people  who  had  recently 
visited  him  had  been  urging  him  to  stand  as  an  oppo 
sition  candidate  for  President;  that  he  had  thought 
the  thing  over  and  had  concluded  to  accept  their 

1  General  William  F.  Smith,  the  eminent  Union  commander. 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  131 

propositions,  and  had  written  them  a  letter  (which  he 
had  not  yet  sent)  giving  his  idea  of  the  proper  way  of 
conducting  the  war,  so  as  to  conciliate  and  impress 
the  people  of  the  South  with  the  idea  that  our  armies 
were  intended  merely  to  execute  the  laws  and  pro 
tect  their  property,  etc.,  and  pledging  himself  to 
conduct  the  war  in  that  inefficient,  conciliatory  style. 

"'This  letter  he  read  to  Baldy,  who,  after  the 
reading  was  finished,  said  earnestly:  "General,  do 
you  not  see  that  looks  like  treason,  and  that  it  will 
ruin  you  and  all  of  us?"  After  some  further  talk 
the  General  destroyed  the  letter  in  Baldy 's  presence, 
and  thanked  him  heartily  for  his  frank  and  friendly 
counsel.  After  this  he  was  again  taken  into  the  inti 
mate  confidence  of  McClellan. 

" '  Immediately  after  the  battle  of  Antietam,  Wood 
and  his  familiar  came  again  and  saw  the  General, 
and  again  Baldy  saw  an  immediate  estrangement  on 
the  part  of  McClellan.  He  seemed  to  be  anxious  to 
get  his  intimate  friends  out  of  the  way  and  to  avoid 
opportunities  of  private  conversation  with  them. 
Baldy  he  particularly  kept  employed  on  reconnois- 
sances  and  such  work.  One  night  Smith  was  return 
ing  from  some  duty  he  had  been  performing,  and, 
seeing  a  light  in  McClellan's  tent,  he  went  in  to  re 
port.  He  reported  and  was  about  to  withdraw,  when 
the  General  requested  him  to  remain.  After  every 


132  JOHN  HAY 

one  was  gone  he  told  him  those  men  had  been  there 
again  and  had  renewed  their  proposition  about  the 
Presidency:  that  this  time  he  had  agreed  to  their 
proposition,  and  had  written  them  a  letter  acceding 
to  their  terms  and  pledging  himself  to  carry  on  the 
war  in  the  sense  already  indicated.  This  letter  he 
read  then  and  there  to  Baldy  Smith. 

'"Immediately  thereafter  B.  Smith  applied  to  be 
transferred  from  that  army.  At  very  nearly  the  same 
time  other  prominent  men  asked  the  same  —  Frank 
lin,  Burnside,  and  others. 

"Now  that  letter  must  be  in  the  possession  of 
F.  Wood,  and  it  will  not  be  impossible  to  get  it. 
Mr.  Weed  has,  I  think,  gone  to  Vermont  to  see  the 
Smiths  about  it."' 

Hay  continues :  — 

"I  was  very  much  surprised  at  the  story  and  ex 
pressed  my  surprise.  I  said  I  had  always  thought 
that  McClellan's  fault  was  a  constitutional  weakness 
and  timidity,  which  prevented  him  from  active  and 
timely  exertion,  instead  of  any  such  deep-laid  scheme 
of  treachery  and  ambition. 

''The  President  replied:  'After  the  battle  of  An- 
tietam  I  went  up  to  the  field  to  try  to  get  him  to 
move,  and  came  back  thinking  he  would  move  at 
once.  But  when  I  got  home  he  began  to  argue  why 
he  ought  not  to  move.  I  peremptorily  ordered  him 


WAR   IN  EARNEST  133 

to  advance.  It  was  nineteen  days  before  he  put  a  man 
over  the  river.  It  was  nine  days  longer  before  he  got 
his  army  across,  and  then  he  stopped  again,  delaying 
on  little  pretexts  of  wanting  this  and  that.  I  began 
to  fear  he  was  playing  false  —  that  he  did  not  want 
to  hurt  the  enemy.  I  saw  how  he  could  intercept 
the  enemy  on  the  way  to  Richmond.  I  determined 
to  make  that  the  test.  If  he  let  them  get  away,  I 
would  remove  him.  He  did  so,  and  I  relieved  him. 
I  dismissed  Major  K.  for  his  silly,  treasonable  talk 
because  I  feared  it  was  staff-talk,  and  I  wanted  an 
example.  The  letter  of  Buell  furnishes  another  evi 
dence  in  support  of  that  theory.  And  the  story  you 
have  heard  Neill  tell  about  [Governor  Horatio]  Sey 
mour's  first  visit  to  McClellan,  all  tallies  with  this 
story/  " 

The  last  reference  to  McClellan  in  this  Diary 
occurs  on  November  n,  1864,  at  the  first  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet  after  Lincoln's  overwhelming  re 
election.  The  President  brought  out  a  sealed  paper, 
which  he  had  asked  his  Cabinet  to  indorse  on  August 
23,  and  when  Hay  opened  it  they  found  it  contained 
a  brief  memorandum  in  which  Lincoln  stated  that, 
as  it  was  extremely  probable  that  he  could  not  be 
reflected,  he  intended  "so  to  cooperate  with  the 
President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  between  the 
election  and  the  inauguration. " 


134  JOHN  HAY 

"'I  resolved/  he  now  told  his  Cabinet,  'in  case 
of  the  election  of  General  McClellan,  .  .  .  that  I 
would  see  him  and  talk  matters  over  with  him.  I 
would  say,  "  General,  the  election  has  demonstrated 
that  you  are  stronger,  have  more  influence  with  the 
American  people  than  I.  Now  let  us  together  —  you 
with  your  influence,  and  I  with  all  the  executive 
power  of  the  Government  —  try  to  save  the  coun 
try.  You  raise  as  many  troops  as  you  possibly  can 
for  this  final  trial,  and  I  will  devote  all  my  energy  to 
assisting  and  finishing  the  war." 

"Seward  said:  'And  the  General  would  answer 
you,  "  Yes,  yes'1',  and  the  next  day,  when  you  saw 
him  again  and  pressed  those  views  upon  him,  he 
would  say,  "  Yes,  yes";  and  so  on  for  ever,  and 
would  have  done  nothing  at  all/ 

"'At  least/  added  Lincoln,  'I  should  have  done 
my  duty,  and  have  stood  clear  before  my  own  con 
science.  * ' 

With  that  characteristic  expression  the  record 
closes  —  a  record  which  reveals  Lincoln  as  invin 
cibly  patient,  fair,  and  considerate  toward  even  the 
general  who  caused  him  and  the  upholders  of  the 
Union  so  many  poignant  disappointments. 

I  have  outrun  the  chronological  order  of  events  in 
order  to  give  unity  to  Hay's  memoranda  on  McClel 
lan. 


WAR  IN  EARNEST  135 

Some  optimist  has  described  man  as  a  reason 
ing  animal:  "a  creature  with  a  passion  for  self-de 
ception/*  would  be  more  accurate;  for  animals  do 
reason  after  their  own  fashion,  whereas,  so  far  as  ap 
pears,  they  do  not  indulge  in  self-deception.  On  his 
being  dismissed,  McClellan's  friends  hinted  that  he 
was  just  about  to  win  the  decisive  battle  of  the  war, 
and  his  apologists,  forgetful  of  his  fifteen  months 
of  dawdling  and  disaster,  perpetuate  in  history  the 
legend  that,  if  he  had  been  given  one  more  chance, 
he  would  have  silenced  his  critics  forever. 

Hay's  memoranda  on  McClellan,  jotted  down  at 
the  time,  have  the  additional  value  of  revealing 
Lincoln's  attitude;  and  when  Hay,  twenty  years 
later,  wrote  Lincoln's  life,  instead  of  softening  or 
reversing  his  opinion  of  McClellan's  conduct  and 
incompetence,  he  repeated  it  with  emphasis. 

It  is  precisely  such  testimony  as  his  that  enables 
the  historian  to  discover  the  state  of  mind,  whether 
personal  or  collective,  out  of  which  came  the  mo 
tives  which  caused  the  events  in  any  historical  epi 
sode.  We  need  to  know  the  words  actually  spoken, 
the  speech  actually  delivered,  —  not  the  expurga 
ted  or  embellished  revision,  purveyed  by  Hansard 
or  by  the  Congressional  Record,  —  because  those 
words  were  integral  strands  in  the  web  of  history. 
We  need  to  know  each  actor's  estimate  of  his  fellows: 


136  JOHN  HAY 

for  however  unjust,  mistaken,  or  over-favorable  that 
estimate  may  be,  it  determined  action.  Lee  planned 
differently  when  he  had  to  deal  with  Grant  and  not 
with  McClellan.  Nine  persons  out  of  ten  in  the 
North,  including  his  Cabinet  and  Congress,  under 
rated  Lincoln  during  most  of  his  presidential  career. 
"  Lincoln  is  a  '  Simple  Susan/  "  wrote  Samuel  Bowles, 
editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican,  only  six  days 
before  the  inauguration.1  Had  Mr.  Bowles  lived  to 
edit  his  own  letters  by  the  light  of  subsequent  events, 
he  would  doubtless  have  substituted  his  later  opin 
ions,  and  so  would  have  figured  as  a  successful 
prophet.  Unless  the  historian  comes  to  this  knowl 
edge,  he  can  never  show  "the  very  age  and  body  of 
the  time  his  form  and  pressure";  the  Past  will  be 
dead  to  him,  an  affair  of  mummies,  a  deciphering  of 
mummy-cases,  which  no  display  of  erudition  con 
cerning  economics,  commercial  statistics  or  docu 
ments  can  bring  to  life. 

John  Hay's  notes  and  letters  serve  as  peep-holes 
through  which,  after  these  many  years,  we  can  look 
directly  at  the  persons  with  whom  he  was  thrown 
during  the  Rebellion  at  the  moment  of  action,  or  we 
can  hear  their  very  voices.  Fragmentary  these  re 
cords  are:  but  they  are  usually  so  characteristic,  so 

1  G.  S.  Merriam,  Life  and  Times  of  Samuel  Bowles  (New  York, 
1885),  i,  318- 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  137 

vital,  so  symptomatic,  that  they  reveal  much.  We 
often  regret  that  this  quick-eyed  observer  lacked  the 
time  to  chronicle  regularly  each  night,  as  the  me 
thodical  Gideon  Welles  was  doing,  the  happenings 
of  the  days.  Still,  the  spontaneity  of  his  minutes, 
enhanced  by  their  frankness  and  vivacious  language, 
counterbalances  their  fragmentariness. 

Acute  though  Hay  was  in  seeing  and  keen  in  judg 
ing,  he  did  not  turn  cynic.  In  spite  of  the  daily  ex 
amples  of  unbridled  selfishness  that  passed  before 
him,  his  healthy  trust  in  human  nature  was  fortified 
by  living  close  to  Lincoln :  and  then  —  he  was  only 
twenty-three. 

On  September  5,  1862,  he  reports  this  bit  of  con 
versation  with  Seward :  — 

"'Mr.  Hay,'"  said  the  Secretary  of  State/' 'what 
is  the  use  of  growing  old?  You  learn  something  of 
men  and  things,  but  never  until  too  late  to  use  it.  I 
have  only  just  now  found  out  what  military  jealousy 
is.  ...  The  other  day  I  went  down  to  Alexandria,  and 
found  General  McClellan's  army  landing.  I  consid 
ered  our  armies  united  virtually  and  thought  them 
invincible.  I  went  home,  and  the  first  news  I  re 
ceived  was  that  each  had  been  attacked,  and  each,  in 
effect,  beaten.  It  never  had  occurred  to  me  that  any 
jealousy  could  prevent  these  generals  from  acting  for 
their  common  fame  and  the  welfare  of  the  country.' 


138  JOHN  HAY 

"I  said  it  never  would  have  seemed  possible  to 
me  that  one  American  general  should  write  of  an 
other  to  the  President,  suggesting  that '  Pope  should 
be  allowed  to  get  out  of  his  own  scrape  his  own 
way/ 

"He  answered;  'I  don't  see  why  you  should  have 
expected  it.  You  are  not  old.  I  should  have  known 
it.'  He  said  this  gloomily  and  sadly." 

There  were,  however,  moments  of  elation,  when 
good  news  came  from  the  armies  in  the  field,  or  the 
political  prospect  brightened.  Thus,  on  the  evening 
after  Lincoln  read  his  Emancipation  Proclamation 
to  the  Cabinet,  a  party  of  ministers  and  their  friends 
met  at  Secretary  Chase's.  "They  all  seemed  to  feel 
a  sort  of  new  and  exhilarated  life;  they  breathed 
freer;  the  President's  Proclamation  had  freed  them 
as  well  as  the  slaves.  They  gleefully  and  merrily 
called  each  other  and  themselves  Abolitionists,  and 
seemed  to  enjoy  the  novel  accusation  of  appropri 
ating  that  horrible  name."  (September  23,  1862.) 

General  Joseph  Hooker  —  "  Fighting  Joe  "  -  was 
another  commander  toward  whom  his  contempora 
ries  and  posterity  have  had  their  reserves.  Since  the 
military  history  of  the  War  has  come  to  be  stud 
ied  dispassionately,  Chancellorsville  has  risen  into 
front  rank  among  the  critical  battles,  and,  as  Hooker 
commanded  at  Chancellorsville  and  was  beaten,  his 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  139 

reputation  has,  logically,  suffered  in  proportion  to 
the  growing  significance  attached  to  that  defeat. 

Hay,  however,  evidently  liked  Hooker,  of  whose 
talks  he  made  several  notes.  I  cite  the  most  impor 
tant. 

On  September  9,  1863,  he  dined  with  Wise,  where 
he  met  Hooker,  Butterfield,  and  Fox. 

"Hooker  was  in  fine  flow.  .  .  .  He  says  he  was 
forced  to  ask  to  be  relieved  by  repeated  acts  which 
proved  that  he  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  manage  his 
army  as  he  thought  best,  but  that  it  was  to  be  man 
oeuvred  from  Washington.  He  instanced  Maryland 
Heights,  whose  garrison  he  was  forbidden  to  touch, 
yet  which  was  ordered  to  be  evacuated  by  the  very 
mail  which  brought  his  (Hooker's)  relief.  And  other 
such  many. 

"At  dinner  he  spoke  of  our  army.  He  says :  It  was 
the  finest  on  the  planet.  He  would  like  to  see  it  fight 
ing  with  foreigners.  ...  It  was  far  superior  to  the 
Southern  army  in  everything  but  one.  It  had  more 
valor,  more  strength,  more  endurance,  more  spirit; 
the  Rebels  are  only  superior  in  vigor  of  attack.  The 
reason  of  this  is  that,  in  the  first  place,  our  army 
came  down  here  capable  of  everything  but  ignorant 
of  everything.  It  fell  into  evil  hands  —  the  hands  of 
a  baby,  who  knew  something  of  drill,  little  of  organi 
zation,  and  nothing  of  the  morale  of  the  army.  It 


140  JOHN  HAY 

was  fashioned  by  the  congenial  spirit  of  this  man 
into  a  mass  of  languid  inertness,  destitute  of  either 
dash  or  cohesion.  The  Prince  de  Joinville,  by  far 
the  finest  mind  I  ever  met  with  in  the  army,  was 
struck  by  this  singular  and,  as  he  said,  inexplicable 
contrast  between  the  character  of  American  soldiers 
as  integers  and  in  mass.  The  one  active,  independent, 
alert,  enterprising;  the  other  indolent,  easy,  waste 
ful,  and  slothful.  It  is  not  in  the  least  singular.  You 
find  a  ready  explanation  in  the  character  of  its  origi 
nal  General.  .  .  . 

"  Hooker  drank  very  little,  not  more  than  the  rest, 
who  were  all  abstemious,  yet  what  little  he  drank 
made  his  cheek  hot  and  red  and  his  eye  brighter. 
I  can  easily  understand  how  the  stories  of  his  drunk 
enness  have  grown,  if  so  little  affects  him  as  I  have 
seen.  He  was  looking  very  well  to-night.  A  tall  and 
statuesque  form  —  grand  fighting  head  and  grizzled 
russet  hair,  —  red,  florid  cheeks  and  bright  blue 
eyes,  forming  a  strong  contrast  with  Butterfield,  who 
sat  opposite  —  a  small,  stout,  compact  man,  with  a 
closely  chiseled  Greek  face  and  heavy  black  mus 
taches,  like  Eugene  Beauharnais.  Both  very  hand 
some  and  very  different. " 

"  September  10.  —  I  dined  to-night  at  Willard's.  .  .  . 
Speaking  of  Lee  [Hooker]  expressed  himself  slight 
ingly  of  Lee's  abilities.  He  says  he  was  never  much 


WAR  IN  EARNEST  141 

respected  in  the  army.  In  Mexico  he  was  surpassed 
by  all  his  lieutenants.  In  the  cavalry  he  was  held 
in  no  esteem.  He  was  regarded  very  highly  by  Gen 
eral  Scott.  He  was  a  courtier,  and  readily  recom 
mended  himself  by  his  insinuating  manner  to  the 
General  [Scott],  whose  petulant  and  arrogant  tem 
per  had  driven  of  late  years  all  officers  of  spirit  and 
self-respect  away  from  him. 

"The  strength  of  the  Rebel  army  rests  on  the 
broad  shoulders  of  Longstreet.  He  is  the  brain  of 
Lee,  as  Stonewall  Jackson  was  his  right  arm.  Before 
every  battle  he  had  been  advised  with.  After  every 
battle  Lee  may  be  found  in  his  tent.  He  is  a  weak 
man  and  little  of  a  soldier.  He  naturally  rests  on 
Longstreet,  who  is  a  soldier  born." 

When  we  recall  that  only  four  months  earlier 
Hooker,  having  been  beaten  at  Chancellorsville, 
boasted  of  successfully  withdrawing  his  army  across 
the  river  from  Lee's  army,  which  was  not  pursuing, 
we  shall  find  more  humor  in  his  depreciation  of  Lee 
than  he  intended.  From  the  frankness  with  which 
Hooker  and  the  others  talked  to  Hay  we  may  be 
justified  in  suspecting  that  they  thought  they  might 
through  him  reach  the  President.  Lincoln,  who 
never  failed  to  give  a  man  credit  for  his  good  quali 
ties,  remarked  to  Hay,  "Whenever  trouble  arises  I 
can  always  rely  on  Hooker's  magnanimity." 


142  JOHN   HAY 

Hay  has  some  characteristic  references  to  another 
notoriety  of  that  period  —  Benjamin  F.  Butler  — 
whom  he  met  at  Point  Lookout  in  January,  1 864. 

"In  the  dusk  of  the  evening,"  he  writes,  "Gen'l 
Butler  came  clattering  into  the  room  where  Marston 
and  I  were  sitting,  followed  by  a  couple  of  aides.  We 
had  some  hasty  talk  about  business :  he  told  me  how 
he  was  administering  the  oath  at  Norfolk;  how  pop 
ular  it  was  growing;  children  cried  for  it;  how  he 
hated  Jews;  how  heavily  he  laid  his  hand  on  them; 
'a  nation  that  the  Lord  had  been  trying  to  make 
something  of  for  three  thousand  years,  and  had  so 
far  utterly  failed.'  '  King  John  knew  how  to  deal  with 
them  —  fried  them  in  swine's  fat.' 

"After  drinking  cider  we  went  down  to  the  Hudson 
City,  the  General's  flagship.  His  wife,  niece,  and 
excessively  pretty  daughter  .  .  .  were  there  at  tea. 
...  At  night,  after  the  ladies  had  gone  off  to  bed,  — 
they  all  said  retired,  but  I  suppose  it  meant  the  same 
thing  in  the  end,  —  we  began  to  talk  about  some 
queer  matters.  Butler  had  some  odd  stories  about 
physical  sympathies  .  .  .  and  showed  a  singular 
acquaintance  with  biblical  studies.  .  .  . 

"At  Baltimore  we  took  a  special  car  and  came 
home.  I  sat  with  the  General  all  the  way  and  talked 
with  him  about  many  matters:  Richmond  and  its 
long  immunity.  He  says  he  can  take  an  army  within 


WAR  IN  EARNEST  143 

thirty  miles  of  Richmond  without  any  trouble;  from 
that  point  the  enemy  can  either  be  forced  to  fight 
in  the  open  field  south  of  the  city,  or  submit  to  be 
starved  into  surrender.  .  .  . 

"He  gave  me  some  very  dramatic  incidents  of  his 
recent  action  in  Fortress  Monroe,  smoking  out  ad 
venturers  and  confidence  men,  testing  his  detectives, 
and  matters  of  that  sort.  He  makes  more  business 
in  that  sleepy  little  Department  than  any  one 
would  have  dreamed  was  in  it.'* 

At  that  sort  of  work  Butler  undeniably  excelled; 
at  fighting,  his  achievements  were  restricted  to  the 
feats  he  boasted  he  could  perform  when  the  enemy 
was  at  an  entirely  safe  distance.  The  proper  com 
ment  on  his  airy  capture  of  Richmond  —  by  tongue 
—  in  this  conversation  with  Hay,  is  to  be  found  in 
Grant's  statement  of  Butler's  fiasco  in  commanding 
the  Army  of  the  James.  "  It  was  as  if  Butler  were  in 
a  bottle.  .  .  .  He  was  perfectly  safe  against  an  attack; 
but  the  enemy  had  corked  the  bottle  and  with  a 
small  force  could  hold  the  cork  in  its  place."  1 

Grant  repeated  this  indelible  epitaph  on  Butler's 
military  career  twenty  years  after  the  event.  How 
Hay  and  Lincoln  commented  on  him  at  the  time  ap 
pears  in  this  entry  in  Hay's  Diary  of  Ma/2 1 , 1 864 :  — 

1  U.  S.  Grant,  Personal  Memoirs  (New  York,  1910),  II,  75.  Grant 
borrowed  the  simile  from  General  Barnard. 


144  JOHN  HAY 

"  Butler  is  turning  out  much  as  I  thought  he  would 
• —  perfectly  useless  and  incapable  for  campaigning. 
...  I  said  to  the  President  to-day  that  I  thought 
Butler  was  the  only  man  in  the  army  in  whom  power 
would  be  dangerous.  McClellan  was  too  timid  and 
vacillating  to  usurp;  Grant  was  too  sound  and  cool- 
headed  and  unselfish;  Banks  also;  Fremont  would 
be  dangerous  if  he  had  more  ability  and  energy. 
'Yes/  says  the  President;  'he  is  like  Jim  Jett's 
brother.  Jim  used  to  say  that  his  brother  was  the 
d dest  scoundrel  that  ever  lived,  but  in  the  in 
finite  mercy  of  Providence  he  was  also  the  d dest 

fool/" 

The  paragraph  which  immediately  follows  Lin 
coln's  remark  concerns  another  cause  of  anxiety:  — 

"The  Germans  seem  inclined  to  cut  up  rough 
about  the  removal  of  Sigel  from  command  in  the 
Shenandoah,"  Hay  writes.  "They  are  heaping  up 
wrath  against  themselves  by  their  clannish  imperti 
nence  in  politics/'  1  (May  21,  1864.) 

Hay's  close  friend,  during  his  four  years  in  the 
White  House,  was  Nicolay,  who,  although  of  a 
matter-of-fact  nature  himself,  appreciated  and  en 
joyed  Hay's  gleaming  wit.  Ill-health  frequently 

1  General  Franz  Sigel,  who  had  been  defeated  several  times  in 
May  and  June,  1864,  was  removed  from  his  command,  as  a  result 
of  Early's  raid  against  Washington  in  July. 


WAR   IN   EARNEST  145 

caused  Nicolay  to  go  away  for  rest,  and  then  his 
junior  sent  him  racy  letters. 

"  My  dear  George/'  he  writes  on  August  21,  1861 : 
"  nothing  new.  An  immense  crowd  that  boreth  ever. 
Painters  who  make  God's  air  foul  to  the  nostrils. 
Rain,  which  makes  a  man  moist  and  adhesive. 
Dust,  which  unwholesomely  penetrates  one's  lungs. 
Washington,  which  makes  one  swear." 

On  April  9,  1862:"!  am  getting  along  pretty 
well.  I  only  work  about  twenty  hours  a  day.  I  do 
all  your  work  and  half  of  my  own  now  you  are  away. 
Don't  hurry  yourself.  ...  I  talk  a  little  French  too 
now.  I  have  taken  a  great  notion  to  the  Gerolts.1  .  .  . 
Madame  la  Baronne  talked  long  and  earnestly 
of  the  state  of  your  hygiene,  and  said  '  it  was  good 
intentions  for  you  to  go  to  the  West  for  small 
time.'" 

In  August  Nicolay  took  another  vacation.  "The 
abomination  of  desolation  has  fallen  upon  this  town," 
Hay  tells  him.  "  I  find  I  can  put  in  twenty-four  hours 
out  of  every  day  very  easily,  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs  at  the  Executive  Mansion.  The  crowd  con 
tinually  increases  instead  of  diminishing.  " (August  I, 
1862.) 

There  are  many  references  to  chills  and  fever, 
which  attacked  Hay  during  his  first  summer,  and  kept 

1  Baron  Gerolt  was  the  Prussian  Minister  in  Washington. 


I46  JOHN  HAY 

coming  back  to  plague  him.  For  exercise,  he  rides 
"on  horseback  mornings"  the  off  horse,  which 
"has  grown  so  rampagious  by  being  never  driven  (I 
have  no  time  to  drive)  that  no  one  else  whom  I  can 
find  can  ride  him."  (August  27,  1862.) 

A  year  later  Hay  reports  that  X.  "  and  his  mother 
have  gone  to  the  white  mountains.  (I  don't  take 
any  special  stock  in  the  matter,  and  write  the  local 
ity  in  small  letters.)  X.  was  so  shattered  by  the  idol 
of  all  of  us,  the  bright  particular  Teutonne,  that 
he  rushed  madly  off  to  sympathize  writh  Nature  in 
her  sternest  aspects.  .  .  .  This  town  is  as  dismal  now 
as  a  defaced  tombstone.  Everybody  has  gone.  I  am 
getting  apathetic  and  write  blackguardly  articles  for 
the  Chronicle,  from  which  W.  extracts  the  dirt  and 
fun;  and  publishes  the  dreary  remains."  (August  7, 
1863.) 

At  the  end  of  that  month  Hay  felt  so  fatigued  that 
he  ran  off  for  a  few  days  to  Long  Branch,  and  to  the 
Brown  Commencement,  where  he  "made  a  small 
chunk  of  talk."  On  his  return,  he  found  Washington 
as  dull  "as  an  obsolete  almanac.  .  .  .  We  have  some 
comfortable  dinners  and  some  quiet  little  orgies  on 
whiskey  and  cheese  in  my  room.  .  .  .  Next  winter 
will  be  the  most  exciting  and  laborious  of  all  our 
lives.  It  will  be  worth  any  other  ten."  (September 
II,  1863.) 


WAR   IN  EARNEST  147 

And  here  is  an  item  of  a  different  kind.  "  My  dear 
Nico:  Don't,  in  a  sudden  spasm  of  good-nature,  send 
any  more  people  with  letters  to  me  requesting  favors 
from  Stanton.  I  would  rather  make  the  tour  of  a 
smallpox  hospital."  (November  25,  1863.) 

That  there  were  occasional  rifts  in  the  clouds  of 
routine,  the  following  playful  note  to  Nicolay  at 
tests  :  — 

"  Society  is  nil  here.  The  Lorings  go  to-morrow  — 
last  lingerers.  We  mingle  our  tears  and  exchange 
locks  of  hair  to-night  in  Corcoran's  Row  —  some  half 
hundred  of  us.  I  went  last  night  to  a  Sacred  Concert 
of  profane  music  at  Ford's.  Young  Kretchmar  and 
old  Kretchpar  were  running  it.  Hs.  and  H.  both  sang: 
and  they  kin  if  anybody  kin.  The  Tycoon  and  I 
occupied  a  private  box,  and  both  of  us  carried  on  a 
hefty  flirtation  with  the  M.  girls  in  the  flies.  .  .  . 
I  am  alone  in  the  White  pest-house.  The  ghosts 
of  twenty  thousand  drowned  cats  come  in  nights 
through  the  south  windows.  I  shall  shake  my  but 
tons  off  with  ague  before  you  get  back."  (June  20, 
1864.) 

"The  world  is  almost  too  many  for  me,"  he  con 
fesses  on  September  24, 1864.  "  I  take  a  dreary  pleas 
ure  in  seeing  P.  eat  steamed  oysters  by  the  half- 
bushel.  .  .  .  S.  must  be  our  resource  this  winter  in 
clo'.  If  you  don't  want  to  be  surprised  into  idiocy. 


i48  JOHN  HAY 

don't  ask  C.  and  L.  the  price  of  goods.  A  faint 
rumor  has  reached  me  and  paralyzed  me.  I  am 
founding  a  'Shabby  Club'  to  make  rags  the  style 
this  winter." 


CHAPTER  VII 

ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH 

SEVERAL  times  during  his  service  at  the  White 
House,  Hay  went  on  political  or  military  er 
rands.  The  routine  of  a  secretary's  life,  even  under 
those  varied  conditions,  sometimes  wore  upon  him, 
and  he  longed  for  the  excitement,  and  the  sense  of 
immediate  accomplishment,  which  life  in  the  field 
offered.  The  President,  always  considerate,  granted 
leave  of  absence. 

Hay's  first  trip  was  to  South  Carolina.  He  reached 
Stone  River  on  April  8,  1863,  the  day  after  the  Union 
fleet  made  a  concerted  attack  on  the  forts  which  de 
fended  Charleston  Harbor.  At  first  he  heard  enthu 
siastic  reports  from  some  of  the  officers,  especially 
from  the  army  staff:  but  Admiral  Du  Pont  judged 
more  wisely  that,  although  the  commands  of  the 
ironclad  had  behaved  gallantly  "under  the  most 
severe  fire  of  heavy  ordnance  that  had  ever  been  de 
livered,  "  1  the  monitors  themselves,  if  the  attack 
had  been  persisted  in,  would  have  been  sunk  or  cap 
tured  by  the  enemy. 

General  Hunter  created  Hay  a  volunteer  aide 
1  N.  &  H.,  vii,  72. 


150  JOHN  HAY 

without  rank.  "I  want  my  Abolition  record  clearly 
defined,"  Hay  wrote  Nicolay,  "and  that  will  do  it 
better  than  anything  else  in  my  mind  and  the  minds 
of  the  few  dozen  people  who  know  me."  Ever  since 
the  presidential  campaign  of  1 860,  Hay  had  been  an 
unquestioning  Republican:  that  meant  a  Unionist 
without  compromise.  When  the  Southern  States 
forced  the  war,  he  regarded  the  Secessionists  as  plain 
rebels;  in  theory  either  criminals,  scoundrels,  or  mad 
men,  deserving  neither  charity  nor  quarter.  As  the 
war  progressed,  he  accepted  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  Lincoln's  plan  of  emancipation  as  essential  to 
the  restoration  of  peace. 

Hay's  mission  did  not  bring  him  into  actual  fight 
ing,  but  it  gave  him  a  view  of  an  army  and  a  fleet  in 
operation,  and  it  opened  his  eyes  to  the  difficulty  of 
taking  Charleston  by  sea.  An  interview  with  Admiral 
Du  Pont  quickly  revised  the  impression  the  army 
officer  had  made  upon  him,  and  he  wrote  the  Presi 
dent  that  the  Admiral,  by  refusing  to  persist  in  an 
impossible  task,  had  saved  the  fleet.  Lincoln,  be  it 
said,  had  not  believed  that  the  attack  on  Charleston 
could  succeed. 

He  stopped  first  at  Hilton  Head,  South  Carolina, 
the  headquarters  of  General  Hunter.  There  he  found 
his  brother  Charles  dangerously  ill. 

"The  doctor  said  he  had  a  slight  bilious  attack, 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        151 

and  treated  him  on  that  supposition."  John  wrote 
their  mother  on  April  23. 

"  I  was  not  satisfied  and  mentioned  my  ideas  to  the 
General,  who  took  the  responsibility  of  dismissing 
the  physician  and  calling  in  another,  a  Dr.  Craven, 
who  seems  a  very  accomplished  man.  He  at  once 
confirmed  my  suspicions  and  said  it  was  a  decided 
case  of  pneumonia.  ...  As  soon  as  Craven  took  hold 
of  him,  he  commenced  getting  better  and  is  now 
entirely  convalescent.  .  .  .  We  will  start  for  Flor 
ida  this  afternoon  and  remain  there  a  few  days. 
The  climate  is  cool  and  pleasant  like  the  Northern 
June. 

"  I  never  felt  better  in  my  life  than  I  do  now.  I 
ride  a  good  deal,  eat  in  proportion  and  sleep  enor 
mously.  I  hope  to  weigh  about  a  ton  when  I  return. 

"  As  to  our  future  military  operations  I  know  no 
thing.  I  do  not  believe  the  General  does.  We  have 
not  force  enough  to  take  Charleston  and  we  hear  no 
talk  of  reinforcements.  The  Admiral  thinks  it  mad 
ness  to  attack  again  with  the  Ironclads.  The  Govern 
ment  at  Washington  think  differently.  They  think 
he  is  to  blame  for  giving  up  so  soon.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  is  to  end. 

11 1  am  not  despondent,  however.  If  we  rest  on  our 
arms  without  firing  another  gun  the  rebellion  will  fall 
to  pieces  before  long.  They  are  in  a  state  of  star- 


152  JOHN  HAY 

vation  from  Virginia  to  Texas.  All  we  have  to  do 
is  to  stand  firm  and  have  faith  in  the  Republic,  and 
no  temporary  repulse,  no  blunders  even,  can  prevent 
our  having  the  victory.  The  elections  in  Connecti 
cut  have  frightened  the  Rebels  and  disheartened 
them  more  than  the  Charleston  failure  has  discour 
aged  us. 

11  We  received  Mary's  letter  last  night,  for  which 
thanks. 

"JOHN  HAY. 
"Colonel  and  A.D.C." 

No  doubt,  Hay  added  his  titles  to  his  signature  in 
order  to  give  satisfaction  to  his  family  at  home, 
which  had  every  right  to  be  proud  of  the  patriotic 
devotion  of  the  "Hay  Boys/'  Their  father,  writing 
to  one  of  his  sisters  early  in  the  war,  thus  referred  to 
them : — 

"Our  family  ranks  are,  as  you  remark,  somewhat 
scattered,  but  all  I  trust  under  the  protection  of  a 
kind  Providence,  as  well  as  the  prayers  of  anxious 
parents.  I  have  every  reason  to  feel  satisfied  with 
the  careers  so  far  of  our  young  family.  John  has  ob 
tained  a  position,  in  a  social  and  political  point  of 
view,  never  before  reached  by  a  young  man  of  his 
age  in  this  generation,  as  the  son  of  the  celebrated 
Alexander  Hamilton  lately  said  to  him.  The  guest 


,,. 


SCHOOLHOUSE   AT   WARSAW,   ILLINOIS 


JOHN    HAY'S    EARLIEST   HOME   AT   WARSAW,    ILLINOIS 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        153 

of  Cabinet  Ministers  [and]  foreign  Ambassadors,  and 
occupying  a  position  in  the  public  mind,  which 
causes  a  day's  illness  to  be  flashed  across  the  Conti 
nent  as  a  matter  in  which  the  nation  felt  an  interest. 
His  arrival  in  a  city  noticed  in  the  dailies  as  much 
as  General  Jackson's  would  have  been  thirty  years 
ago.  But  enough  of  self-gratulation.  All  the  family 
I  have  no  doubt  share  in  the  pleasant  reflection 
that  the  honor  of  each  one  is  the  property  of  the 
whole. 

"  Augustus,  if  less  conspicuous,  is  not  less  able 
to  act  his  part  respectably  anywhere  he  may  be 
placed.  Charles  E.  is  just  now  entering  upon  a 
career  which  if  the  balls  of  rebels  do  not  cut  [it] 
short,  may  be  as  splendid  as  that  of  his  elder  brother. 
He  is  now  commissioned  as  aide-de-camp  to  Maj.- 
Gen.  Hunter,  who  is  now  commander  in  Missouri, 
an  honor  never  conferred  on  so  young  a  man,  as  far 
as  I  know,  since  Alexander  Hamilton  was  made 
aide  to  Gen.  Washington.  He  was  packed  ready  to 
leave  Fort  Leavenworth  for  Santa  Fe  when  [they 
determined]  to  change  his  destination.  His  officer  in 
command  expressed  surprise  that  such  an  honor 
should  be  conferred  on  a  youth  of  his  age,  but  told 
him  he  was  deserving  of  it.  He  will  be  in  St.  Louis 
in  a  few  days  to  get  a  new  rig  of  regimentals  suited 
to  his  new  honor/* 


154  JOHN  HAY 

We  cannot  fail  to  sympathize  with  the  honest 
pride  of  Dr.  Hay,  who  saw  his  three  sons  serving 
their  country  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  crisis  of 
the  nation's  life  or  death.  The  comparison  of  John's 
celebrity  with  that  of  General  Jackson  is  not  only 
delightfully  naif,  but  also  indicates  what  an  impres 
sion  "Old  Hickory"  made  on  the  imagination  of  his 
con  tern  poraries . 

As  soon  as  his  brother  Charles  was  strong  enough 
for  the  voyage,  John  took  him  to  Florida. 

"We  visited  all  the  posts  of  this  department  in 
that  State,"  John  wrote  his  grandfather  on  May  2, 
1863,  "  and  were  gone  more  than  a  week.  .  .  .  I  never 
saw  a  more  beautiful  country  than  Florida.  The 
soil  is  almost  as  rich  as  our  prairie  land.  All  sorts  of 
fruit  and  grain  grow  with  very  little  cultivation,  and 
fish  and  game  of  every  kind  abound.  I  found  there 
a  good  many  sound  Union  people,  though  the  major 
ity  are  of  course  bitter  rebels." 

To  Nicolay,  Hay  wrote  from  Stone  River:  — 

"I  wish  you  could  be  down  here.  You  would  en 
joy  it  beyond  measure.  The  air  is  like  June  at  noon 
and  like  May  at  morning  and  evening.  The  scenery 
is  tropical.  The  sunsets  unlike  anything  I  ever  saw 
before.  They  are  not  gorgeous  like  ours,  but  singu 
larly  quiet  and  solemn.  The  sun  goes  down  over  the 
pines  through  a  sky  like  ashes  of  roses,  and  hangs 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        155 

for  an  instant  on  the  horizon  like  a  bubble  of  blood. 
Then  there  is  twilight  such  as  you  dream  about." 

Hay  returned  to  Washington  during  the  critical 
interval  between  Chancellorsville  and  Gettysburg, 
when  the  Confederacy,  flushed  by  the  success  which 
the  incompetence  of  Hooker  presented  it,  was  pre 
paring  its  astonishing  invasion  of  Pennsylvania. 

Months  elapsed  before  Hay  saw  any  direct  result 
from  his  first  trip  south.  Then,  on  December  28, 
1863,  he  received  letters  from  Unionists  in  Florida, 
asking  him  to  go  down  there  and  run  as  their  Repre 
sentative  for  Congress.  President  Lincoln,  in  his 
annual  message  on  December  8,  had  announced  his 
intentions  in  regard  to  reconstruction  of  the  Con 
federate  States.  He  offered  to  guarantee  a  full  par 
don  to  all  who  had  been  connected  with  the  Rebellion, 
provided  they  took  an  oath  "to  support,  protect, 
and  defend"  the  United  States  Constitution  and  the 
Union,  and  to  abide  by  the  recent  legislation  freeing 
the  slaves.  Only  persons  who  had  betrayed  their 
trust  by  quitting  offices  under  the  United  States 
Government  in  order  to  serve  the  Confederacy,  or 
had  maltreated  the  colored  troops,  were  excluded 
from  this  amnesty.  The  President  further  promised 
that  when  citizens  numbering  a  tenth  of  the  voters 
in  1860  took  this  oath  and  established  a  republican 
government  in  any  of  the  rebellious  States,  the 


156  JOHN  HAY 

United  States  Government  would  protect  them  from 
foreign  invasion  and  domestic  violence. 

When  Hay  consulted  Mr.  Lincoln  in  regard  to 
the  invitation  from  Florida,  the  President  thought 
that  this  would  be  a  good  opportunity  for  testing 
his  scheme.  Accordingly,  he  commissioned  Hay  to 
start  at  once  to  Point  Lookout,  deliver  the  oath- 
books  to  General  Marston,  and  then  to  go  farther 
South. 

"  I  went  on  board  a  little  tug  at  the  Seventh  Street 
Wharf,"  he  writes,  "and  rattled  and  rustled  through 
the  ice  to  Alexandria,  where  I  got  on  board  the  Clyde, 
most  palatial  of  steam  tugs,  fitted  up  with  a  very 
pretty  cabin  and  berths,  heated  by  steam,  and  alto 
gether  sybaritic  in  its  appointments." 

The  next  morning  (January  3,  1864),  on  landing 
at  Point  Lookout,  he  was  received  by  a  pompous 
aide  who  led  him  through  the  bitter  cold  to  General 
Marston's  headquarters.  "There  stood  in  the  atti 
tude,  in  which,  if  Comfort  were  ever  deified,  the 
statues  should  be  posed,  —  parted  coat-tails,  —  a 
broad  plenilunar  base  exposed  to  the  grateful  warmth 
of  the  pine- wood  fire,  —  a  hearty  Yankee  gentle 
man,  clean-shaven,  —  sunny  and  rosy,  —  to  whom 
I  was  presented,  and  who  said  laconically, '  Sit  there ! ' 
pointing  to  a  warm  seat  by  a  well -spread  breakfast- 
table."  Whilst  they  were  eating,  "the  General  told 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        157 

a  good  yarn  on  a  contraband  soldier  who  com 
plained  of  a  white  man  abusing  him :  1 1  does  n't 
object  to  de  pussonal  cuffin',  but  he  must  speck  de 


unicorn/ 


Hay's  description  of  the  Southerners  held  as  pris 
oners  there  throws  light  on  the  extent  to  which  they 
were  reduced. 

"The  General's  flock  are  a  queer  lot,"  he  writes. 
"Dirty,  ragged,  yet  jolly.  Most  of  them  are  still 
rebellious,  but  many  are  tired  and  ready  to  quit, 
while  some  are  actuated  by  a  fierce  desire  to  get  out 
of  the  prison,  and,  by  going  into  our  army,  avenge  the 
wrongs  of  their  forced  service  in  the  Rebel  ranks. 
They  are  great  traders.  A  stray  onion  —  a  lucky 
treasure-trove  of  a  piece  of  coal  —  is  a  capital  for 
extensive  operations  in  Confederate  trash.  They  sell 
and  gamble  away  their  names  with  utter  reckless 
ness.  .  .  .  They  sell  their  names  when  drawn  for  a 
detail  of  work,  a  great  prize  in  the  monotonous  life 
of  every  day.  A  smallpox  patient  sells  his  place  on 
the  sick-list  to  a  friend  who  thinks  the  path  to  Dixie 
easier  from  the  hospital  than  the  camp.  The  traf 
fic  in  names  on  the  morning  of  Gen'l  Butler's  detail 
of  five  hundred  for  exchange  was  as  lively  as  Wall 
Street  on  days  when  Taurus  climbs  the  zenith,  or 
the  '  Coal  Hole '  when  gold  is  tumbling  ten  per  cent 
an  hour." 


158  JOHN  HAY 

That  evening  General  Butler  came  in,  as  described 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  and  took  Hay  back  to 
Washington. 

On  January  13,  Hay  received  his  commission  as 
Assistant  Adjutant-General,  and  announced  to  the 
President  that  he  was  ready  to  start.  Mr.  Lincoln 
sent  him  off  with  a  hearty,  "  Great  good  luck  and 
God's  blessing  go  with  you,  John!" 

At  New  York,  he  embarked  on  the  Fulton  with 
the  Fifty-fourth  Colored  Regiment.  "Variety  of 
complexions,"  he  notes;  "  red-heads  —  filing  into 
their  places  on  deck  —  singing,  whistling,  smoking, 
and  dancing  —  eating  candy  and  chewing  tobacco. 
Jolly  little  cuss,  round,  rosy,  and  half-white,  sing 
ing:— 

1 '  Oh,  John  Brown,  dey  hung  him! 

We  're  gwine  to  jine  de  Union  Army. 
We  're  gwine  to  trabbel  to  de  Souf 
To  smack  de  Rebels  in  de  mouf.' " 

On  the  1 9th,  a  cold  raw  day,  they  passed  Charles 
ton  early  in  the  morning,  and  saw  Fort  Sumter  "lit 
up  by  a  passing  waft  of  sunshine."  Arrived  at  Hilton 
Head,  he  reported  to  General  Gillmore,  who  was 
somewhat  disconcerted,  because  he  supposed  that 
Hay's  mission  would  necessitate  a  military  opera 
tion.  Hay  reassured  him,  and  during  the  fortnight 
of  his  stay  there  he  visited  the  Union  works  round 
Charleston. 


ERRANDS   NORTH  AND  SOUTH        159 

On  January  23,  in  company  with  Generals  Gill- 
more  and  Terry,  he  "saw  the  scene  of  the  crossing 
by  Shaw;  l  crossed  and  went  in  ambulances  to  Wag 
ner  ;  spent  some  time  there.  From  Gregg  had  a  good 
view  of  Fort  Sumter  —  silent  as  the  grave  —  flag 
flying  over  it  —  a  great  flag  flying  over  the  battery 
on  Sullivan's  Island.  The  city,  too,  was  spread  out 
before  us  like  a  map;  everything  very  silent;  a  ship 
lying  silent  at  the  wharf.  No  sign  of  life  in  Ripley, 
Johnson  or  Pinckney."  z 

Ten  days  later  the  silence  was  broken.  Hay  was 
again  making  a  tour  of  inspection  with  General 
Terry. 

"Just  as  we  got  in  sight  of  Wagner  a  white  smoke 
appeared  in  the  clear  air  (the  fog  had  lifted  suddenly) 
and  a  sharp  crack  was  heard.  It  seemed  as  if  a  ce 
lestial  pop-corn  had  been  born  in  the  ether.  '  There 's 
a  shell  from  Simkins/  said  Turner.  We  went  on  and 
there  were  more  of  them.  As  we  got  to  Wagner  we 
got  out  and  sent  the  ambulance  to  a  place  of  safety 
under  the  walls.  They  were  just  making  ready  to 
discharge  a  great  gun  from  Wagner.  The  Generals 
clapped  hands  to  their  ears.  The  gun  was  fired,  and 
the  black  globe  went  screaming  close  to  the  ground 

1  Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw,  killed  while  leading   the  assault 
of  his  colored  regiment,  the'  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts,  on  Fort 
Wagner,  July  1 8,  1863. 

2  Forts  near  Charleston. 


160  JOHN  HAY 

over  the  island,  over  the  harbor,  landing  and  burst 
ing  near  the  helpless  blockade-runner  stranded  half 
way  from  Fort  Beauregard  to  Fort  Moultrie.  We 
walked  up  the  beach. " 

Hay  observed  acutely,  not  only  sights  but  sounds. 

"The  shells  have  singular  voices,"  he  records  of 
the  cannonade;  "some  had  a  regular  musical  note 
like  Chu-chu-weechu-weechu-b  r  r  r;  and  each  of  the 
fragments  a  wicked  little  whistle  of  its  own.  Many 
struck  in  the  black,  marshy  mud  behind  us,  burying 
themselves,  and  casting  a  malodorous  shower  into 
the  air.  Others  burrowed  in  the  sand.  One  struck 
the  face  of  Chat  field,  while  I  was  standing  on  the 
parapet,  with  a  heavy  thud,  and  in  a  moment  after 
wards  threw  a  cloud  of  sand  into  the  air.  I  often  saw 
in  the  air  a  shell  bursting,  —  fierce,  jagged  white 
lines  darting  out  first,  like  javelins,  —  then  the 
flowering  of  the  awful  bud  into  full  bloom,  —  all 
in  the  dead  silence  of  the  upper  air,  —  the  crack  and 
whistle  of  the  fragments. 

"Colonel  Dray  ton  took  us  to  see  the  great  300- 
pounder  Parrot.  At  a  very  little  distance,  an  ugly- 
looking  hole  where  a  shell  had  just  burst;  beside  the 
gun,  traces  in  the  sand  of  hasty  trampling  and  wagon- 
wheels;  dark  stains  soaking  into  the  sand;  a  poor 
fellow  had  just  had  his  leg  taken  off  by  a  piece  of  a 
shell.  I  saw  them  putting  a  crushed  and  mangled 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    161 

mass  into  an  ambulance.  He  was  still  and  pale.  The 
driver  started  off  at  a  merry  trot.  A  captain  said: 
'D you,  drive  that  thing  slower!' 

"We  walked  back  on  the  beach  to  Wagner.  A 
shell  exploded  close  behind  us.  I  made  a  bad  dodge. 
Walked  all  over  Wagner  and  got  a  sympathetic  view 
of  the  whole  affair." 

On  February  9,  Hay  reached  Jacksonville,  from 
which  point  General  Gillmore  planned  an  expedi 
tion  inland.  Hay  addressed  the  Confederate  prison 
ers,  explaining  to  them  the  nature  of  the  amnesty  and 
assuring  them  that,  if  they  accepted  it,  the  United 
States  Government  would  protect  them.  Then  he 
opened  an  office  in  the  quartermaster's  block,  took 
out  his  oath-books,  and  waited. 

'They  soon  came,"  he  says,  "a  dirty  swarm  of 
gray  coats,  and  filed  into  the  room,  escorted  by  a 
negro  guard.  Fate  had  done  its  worst  for  the  poor 
devils.  Even  a  nigger  guard  did  n't  seem  to  excite 
a  feeling  of  resentment.  They  stood  for  a  moment  in 
awkward  attitudes  along  the  wall.  ...  I  soon  found 
they  had  come  up  in  good  earnest  to  sign  their  names. 
They  opened  again  a  chorus  of  questions  which  I 
answered  as  I  could.  At  last  a  big  good-natured  fel 
low  said,  'This  question's  enough.  Let's  take  the 
oath ! '  They  all  stood  up  in  line  and  held  up  their 
hands  while  I  read  the  oath.  As  I  concluded,  the 


162  JOHN  HAY 

negro  sergeant  came  up,  saluted,  and  said:  'Dere's 
one  dat  did  n't  hole  up  his  hand/  They  began  to 
sign,  —  some  still  stuck  and  asked  questions,  some 
wrote  good  hands,  but  most  bad.  Nearly  half  made 
their  mark." 

Having  secured  sixty  names,  Hay  was  reasonably 
well  satisfied  with  his  first  day's  work.  That  more 
than  half  the  prisoners  of  war  were  eager  to  desert 
showed  how  the  spirit  of  the  common  people  was 
broken.  Everybody  seemed  tired  of  the  war,  and 
longed  for  peace  on  any  terms.  The  political  ques 
tions  involved  did  not  trouble  them.  "Some  of  the 
more  intelligent  cursed  their  politicians  and  especi 
ally  South  Carolina;  but  most  looked  hopefully  to 
the  prospect  of  having  a  government  to  protect  them 
after  the  anarchy  of  the  few  years  past.  There  was 
little  left  of  what  might  be  called  Loyalty.  But  what 
I  build  my  hopes  on,"  he  adds,  "  is  the  evident  weari 
ness  of  the  war  and  anxiety  for  peace." 

Though  Hay  abhorred  the  military  and  political 
leaders  of  the  Rebellion,  he  pitied  the  many  victims 
of  their  policy.  Here  is  a  vignette  of  a  household  to 
which  he  was  introduced  at  Jacksonville:  "I  saw  in 
a  few  moments*  glance  the  wretched  story  of  two 
years.  A  lady,  well-bred  and  refined,  dressed  worse 
than  a  bound  girl,  with  a  dirty  and  ragged  gown  that 
did  not  hide  her  trim  ankles  and  fine  legs.  A  white- 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        163 

haired,  heavy-eyed,  slow-speaking  old  young  man. 
A  type  of  thousands  of  homes  where  punishment  of 
giant  crimes  has  lit  on  humble  innocents." 

War  means  kaleidoscopic  contrasts.  At  Beaufort 
on  Washington's  Birthday,  Hay  attended  a  ball 
managed  by  the  young  officers.  When  the  dancing 
began,  he  went  to  the  hospital  ship  and  "saw  many 
desperately  wounded;  Colonel  Reed  mortally,  clutch 
ing  at  his  bedclothes  and  passing  garments;  picked 
up,  bed  and  all,  and  carried  away,  picking  out  his 
clothes  from  a  pile  by  shoulder-straps  -  '  Major? ' 
'No!  Lieutenant-Colonel!™  General  Saxton  was  so 
shocked  by  Reed's  appearance  that  he  returned  to 
the  ball  and  ordered  lights  out  in  half  an  hour.  The 
dancers  grumbled,  but  all  had  the  heart  to  eat  sup 
per.  The  General  "came  back  glowing  with  the 
triumph  of  a  generous  action  performed,  and  asked 
us  up  to  his  room,  where  we  drank  champagne  and 
whiskey,  and  ate  cake." 

Hay  pursued  his  way  to  Fernandina,  which  added 
a  few  names  to  his  roll ;  but  some  of  the  natives  "  re 
fused  to  sign  on  the  ground  that  they  were  not 
'repentant  Rebels/'  He  already  realized  that  his 
mission  was  premature.  The  necessary  ten  per  cent 
of  loyalists  could  not  be  secured,  and  "to  alter  the 
suffrage  law  for  a  bare  tithe  would  not  give  us  the 
moral  force  we  want.  The  people  of  the  interior 


I64  JOHN  HAY 

would  be  indignant  against  such  a  snap- judgment 
taken  by  incomers,  and  would  be  jealous  and  sullen/' 

In  order  to  complete  his  inspection,  Hay  went  on 
to  Key  West,  filling  his  Journal  with  pen-pictures  of 
the  sea  and  reefs  and  of  the  human  derelicts.  As  you 
read  the  following  passages,  you  might  suppose  that 
they  were  written,  not  by  a  young  major  on  a  pol 
itico-military  errand,  but  by  a  Hearn  or  a  Loti, 
twenty  years  later,  recording  leisurely  his  impres 
sions  of  travel. 

"  March  5.  .  .  .  To-night  the  phosphorescent  show 
is  the  finest  I  have  yet  seen.  A  broad  track  of  glory 
follows  the  ship.  By  the  sides  abaft  the  wheels,  the 
rushing  waves  are  splendid  silver,  flecked  here  and 
there  with  jets  of  flame;  while  outside  the  silvery 
trouble,  the  startled  fish  darting  from  our  track 
mark  the  blue  waters  with  curves  and  splashes  of 
white  radiance.  Occasionally  across  our  path  drifts 
a  broad  blotch  of  luminous  brilliancy,  a  school  of 
fishes  brightening  the  populous  waters. 

" March  6.  A  beautiful  Sunday;  the  purest  South 
ern  day ;  the  air  cool  but  cherishing  and  kindly ;  the 
distant  shore  fringed  with  palms  and  cocoanuts ;  the 
sea  a  miracle  of  color;  on  the  one  hand  a  bright  vivid 
green;  on  the  other  a  deep  dark  blue;  flaked  by  the 
floating  shadows  cast  by  the  vagrant  clouds  that  loaf 
in  the  liquid  sky. 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        165 

"Leaning  over  the  starboard  rail,  gazing  with  a 
lazy  enjoyment  at  this  scene  of  enchantment,  at  the 
fairy  islands  scattered  like  a  chain  of  gems  on  the 
bosom  of  this  transcendent  sea,  bathed  in  the  emer 
ald  ripples  and  basking  in  the  rosy  effulgence  of  the 
cherishing  sky;  the  white  sails  flitting  through  the 
quiet  inlets ;  the  soft  breeze  causing  the  sunny  water 
to  sparkle  and  the  trees  to  wave,  I  thought  that  here 
were  the  Isles  of  the  Blessed ;  within  the  magic  ring 
of  these  happy  islands  the  sirens  were  singing  and 
the  maids  were  twining  their  flowing  hair  with  sprays 
of  the  coral.  Anchored  in  everlasting  calm,  far  from 
the  malice  of  the  sky,  or  the  troubling  eyes  of  men, 
they  sported  through  the  tranquil  years  of  the  ever 
lasting  summer,  in  the  sacred  idleness  of  the  im 
mortals/* 

And  having  laid  on  his  colors  in  this  luscious 
fashion,  almost  to  the  point  of  cloying,  Hay,  with 
characteristic  humor,  adds:  — 

"My  friend,  Canis  Marinus,  begged  to  differ.  He 
said:  'There's  the  Ragged  Keys;  full  o'  mud-torkles 
and  rattle-snakes;  them  little  boats  is  full  of  Conks 
• —  come  up  for  to  sponge/ ' 

Hay  found  Key  West  "bathed  in  the  quiet  ripples 
of  the  pale  green  water,  whitened  by  the  coral.  So 
bright  green  that  I  cannot  describe  the  gem-like 
shine  of  the  distant  waters.  The  sea-gulls  that  soar 


166  JOHN  HAY 

above  the  sea  have  their  white  breasts  and  inside 
wings  splendidly  stained  with  green  by  the  reflec 
tion  of  the  gleaming  water. "  As  his  business  at  the 
Key  consumed  little  time,  he  devoted  himself,  as 
was  his  custom,  to  sight-seeing,  which  included,  in 
this  case,  some  of  the  queer  inhabitants  of  the  town. 
Except  for  "a  very  decent  darky  with  a  very  decent 
buggy  belonging  to  a  v.  d.  Dr.  S.,  the  only  blot  of 
decency  on  the  Key  West  escutcheon,'*  he  pro 
nounced  them  "a  race  of  thieves  and  a  degeneration 
of  vipers/' 

On  the  voyage  North,  the  steamer  ran  into  a  fresh 
gale.  "We  all  stood  wide-legged  and  anxious  on  the 
forecastle  as  men  will  about  little  things  on  ships,  - 
Joe  heaving  the  lead,  -  -  the  Captain  leaning  to  the 
breeze,  his  alpaca  coat  bagging  like  a  seedy  balloon, 
-  Old  Reed  confident  and  oracular,  -  -  till  Stringer, 
who  had  been  hanging  like  a  pointer  dog  over  the 
rail,  sang  out-  'Light  ho!  4.'  This  was  old  Bethel, 
and  we  at  once  knew  where  we  were.  We  anchored 
and  lay  there  quietly.  I  finished  my  poem,  'North 
ward,'  begun  to-day  on  leaving  Key  West."  1 

On  steaming  into  New  York,  after  stopping  at 
Fernandina  and  Hilton  Head,  three  inches  of  snow 
covered  the  deck,  where  "effeminate  Southerners 

1  At  Camp  Shaw,  a  little  while  before,  he  wrote  "Lese- Amour," 
one  of  his  best  love-lyrics. 


ERRANDS   NORTH  AND   SOUTH        167 

of  six  months'  standing'*  shivered  "like  Italian 
greyhounds."  The  next  morning  Hay  reached  the 
White  House,  and  reported  to  the  President,  who 
thoroughly  understood  the  state  of  affairs  in  Florida. 
(March  24,  1864.)  1 

Mr.  Lincoln  evidently  approved  Hay's  discretion, 
tact,  and  alertness,  because  he  soon  sent  him  on  an 
other  mission  of  a  different  kind. 

Since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  there  had  existed  in 
the  North  a  minority  of  sympathizers  with  the  Re 
bellion  who  organized  a  secret  society,  with  lodges, 
ritual,  and  ramifications  after  the  pattern  of  the 
revolutionists  in  Continental  Europe.  They  called 
themselves  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  and 
they  had  several  aliases,  -  -  the  Order  of  American 
Knights,  the  Order  of  the  Star,  and  the  Sons  of  Lib 
erty,  --to  use,  like  criminals,  in  case  of  discovery. 
They  intended  to  undermine  the  Union  sentiment  in 
the  Northern  States,  by  enrolling  as  many  members 
as  possible,  who  pledged  themselves,  not  merely  not 
to  support  the  Union  cause  by  enlisting  in  it,  but  ac 
tively  to  aid  the  Rebels  by  giving  them  information 
and  other  help.  Where  they  safely  could,  they  as 
sailed  the  property  and  lives  of  loyal  citizens.  They 
collected  arms  and  ammunition,  they  formed  mili 
tary  bodies  and  drilled,  and  they  prepared  for  a  vast 
1  Hay  summarizes  his  mission  in  N.  &.  H.,  vm,  282-85. 


168  JOHN   HAY 

exhibition  of  their  powers  when  the  right  hour  should 
strike.  Till  then,  they  worked  underground. 

The  Northern  High  Priest  of  the  Knights  was 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham ;  the  Southern  head,  Ster 
ling  Price,  was  a  general  in  the  Confederate  Army. 
Vallandigham  claimed  that  at  its  height  the  order 
numbered  half  a  million,  and  though  he  probably 
exaggerated,  the  organization  was  large  enough  to 
be  formidable.  It  flourished  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illi 
nois,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  where  its  members, 
by  voting  in  concert,  might  turn  the  scale  in  a  close 
election.  Their  secrecy  added  tenfold  to  their  pre 
sumed  strength. 

Late  in  the  spring  of  1864,  General  Rosecrans, 
commanding  in  Missouri,  having  unearthed  the 
secrets  of  the  Knights,  imparted  them  to  Governor 
Yates,  of  Illinois,  who  joined  him  in  urging  the  Pres 
ident  to  allow  Colonel  Sanderson,  of  Rosecrans' 
staff,  to  go  to  Washington  with  the  evidence.  Lin 
coln,  who  from  the  first  had  looked  upon  the  Knights 
with  " good-humored  contempt,"  was  not  inclined 
to  create  public  alarm  by  sending  for  Sanderson. 
He  suspected  also  that  Rosecrans  wished  by  this 
ruse  to  embroil  the  President  with  Secretary  Stan- 
ton;  and  he  therefore  despatched  Hay  to  St.  Louis 
to  ascertain  what  the  revelations  amounted  to. 

On  the  journey,  Hay  "sat  and  wrote  rhymes  in 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    169 

the  same  compartment  with  a  pair  of  whiskey  smug 
glers."  He  describes  Rosecrans  as  "a  fine,  hearty, 
abrupt  sort  of  talker,  heavy- whiskered,  blond,  keen 
eyes,  with  light  brows  and  lashes,  head  shunted  for 
ward  a  little;  legs  a  little  unsteady  in  walk."  Com 
ing  to  business  after  dinner,  he  offered  Hay  a  cigar. 
"'No?  Long-necked  fellows  like  you  don't  need 
them.  Men  of  my  temperament  derive  advantage 
from  them  as  a  sedative  and  as  a  preventer  of  corpu 
lence,"  Then,  puffing  away,  and  looking  over  his 
shoulder  from  time  to  time,  as  if  fearing  he  might  be 
overheard,  he  disclosed  his  discoveries  about  the 
"O.A.K."  as  the  Order  of  American  Knights  was 
called  for  short.  Detectives  who  had  joined  their 
lodges  in  Missouri,  reported  that  the  whole  order 
was  in  a  state  of  intense  activity;  that  it  had  com 
mitted  many  recent  massacres;  that  it  proposed  to 
elect  Vallandigham,  then  in  exile  in  Canada,  a 
delegate  to  the  Democratic  Convention  in  Chicago, 
and  that  if  the  Government  rearrested  him  when  he 
came,  the  conspirators  would  "  unite  to  resist  the 
officers  and  to  protect  him  at  all  hazards." 

Having  listened  attentively  to  Rosecrans,  Hay 
called  on  Sanderson,  heard  his  statements,  and  then 
went  back  to  finish  the  evening  with  the  General. 
The  discreet  secretary  neither  made  suggestions  nor 
asked  for  a  copy  of  Sanderson's  voluminous  report. 


170  JOHN  HAY 

He,  too,  surmised  that  Rosecrans  wished  by  this 
means  to  "thwart  and  humiliate  Stanton,"  and  that 
Sanderson,  naturally  proud  of  his  success  as  a  ferret, 
would  like  to  impress  the  President  with  his  worth ; 
and  he  suspected  that  they  wanted  money  for  the 
secret  service  fund. 

These  things  he  duly  related  to  Lincoln,  who 
"seemed  not  over- well  pleased  that  Rosecrans  had 
not  sent  all  the  necessary  papers"  by  Hay.  As  for 
the  General's  urging  secrecy,  the  President  remarked 
that  a  secret  which  had  already  been  confided  to 
the  Governors  of  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ohio,  and 
to  their  respective  staffs,  "could  scarcely  be  worth 
keeping  now."  He  thought  the  Northern  section  of 
the  conspiracy  a  negligible  quantity —  "a  mere  po 
litical  organization,  with  about  as  much  of  malice 
and  as  much  of  puerility  as  the  Knights  of  the  Golden 
Circle." 

Events  confirmed  Lincoln's  view:  for  although 
Vallandigham  returned  to  Ohio  unmolested,  and 
took  a  vehement  part  in  the  Democratic  Convention, 
the  O.A.K.  kept  still,  and,  if  they  exerted  any  in 
fluence  on  the  election  in  November,  that  influence 
was  undeniably  puerile. 

Not  only  downright  traitors,  but  political  oppo 
nents  of  President  Lincoln  and  peace-at-any-price 
men  strutted  and  fretted  their  hour  upon  the  stage, 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    171 

during  that  summer  of  1864.  In  some  respects  the 
most  notable  of  these  annoying  critics  was  Horace 
Greeley.  No  one  disputed  that  his  organ,  the  New 
York  Tribune,  was  then  the  most  authoritative 
newspaper  in  the  United  States.  It  had  the  widest 
circulation  among  farmers  and  rural  readers,  "the 
plain  people "  whom  Lincoln  regarded  as  the  back 
bone  of  the  country.  It  was  taken  with  equal  favor 
in  the  counting-room  and  offices  and  in  the  stores 
and  homes,  of  the  large  cities  and  towns.  Scores  of 
thousands  of  Northerners  turned  to  it  every  day,  not 
only  for  its  news  but  for  its  opinions.  Its  editorial 
page  set  forth,  as  in  a  serial  story,  the  Gospel  accord 
ing  to  St.  Horace,  which  his  devotees,  untroubled  by 
its  inconsistencies,  came  to  accept  without  question. 
The  Tribune  was  what  Greeley  made  it;  the  em 
bodiment  of  his  virtues,  his  defects,  his  prejudices. 
He  shed  his  personality  through  it  from  the  first 
column  to  the  last,  and  the  thousands  to  whom  he 
appealed  admired  him  as  much  in  his  weakness  as  in 
his  strength.  He  was  a  New  England  Yankee,  honest, 
shrewd,  enterprising,  resourceful,  believing  that  the 
Lord  helped  those  who  helped  themselves,  and  that, 
as  he  had  prospered  exceedingly,  the  Lord  was  on 
his  side.  Nature  gave  him  the  racy  speech,  the  tart 
phrase.  What  he  saw,  he  stated  clearly;  but  this  does 
not  imply  that  he  saw  either  far  or  deep.  Though  he 


172  JOHN  HAY 

spent  all  his  mature  life  in  New  York  City,  his  mind 
retained  the  schoolmasterish  quality  of  his  youth. 
So  his  person,  with  its  ill-fitting  clothes,  and  his  face 
stamped  by  a  countrified  expression  and  encircled 
by  flowing  locks  and  a  shaggy,  diffuse  throat  beard, 
suggested  —  no  matter  where  you  met  him  —  the 
rusticities  of  Vermont. 

For  more  than  twenty  years,  Greeley  had  been  the 
autocrat  of  the  Tribune.  When  the  war  broke  out 
the  multitudinous  public  that  had  been  taught  by 
him  in  their  ordinary  affairs  turned  to  him  for  guid 
ance.  The  loose  habits  of  reasoning,  and  of  snap- 
judgments,  which  confirmed  journalists  seldom  es 
cape,  Greeley  not  merely  did  not  struggle  against, 
but  he  cultivated.  He  dipped  his  pen  of  infallibility 
into  his  ink  of  omniscience  with  as  little  self-distrust 
as  a  child  plays  with  matches.  Conscious  of  the  utter 
rectitude  of  his  intentions,  he  found  it  hard  not  to 
suspect  those  who  differed  from  him  of  moral  crooked 
ness.  Doomed,  as  editors  must  be,  to  express  opinion 
on  insufficient  evidence,  he  seemed  at  times  to  re 
gard  evidence  in  general  as  finical  if  not  superfluous. 
Assuming  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  though  well-mean 
ing,  was  inexperienced  and  possessed  of  only  a 
mediocre  capacity,  Greeley  made  it  his  duty  to  ad 
vise  him;  and  when  his  advice  was  not  taken,  he 
berated  the  advisee.  With  equal  assurance  he  criti- 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    173 

cized  the  conduct  of  international  relations  by 
Seward,  the  financial  measures  of  Chase,  and  the 
operations  of  every  commander  afloat  or  ashore. 
From  his  editorial  chair  in  the  Tribune  office,  it  cost 
him  no  more  effort  to  tell  Grant  or  Farragut  what 
to  do  than  to  discuss  the  pumpkin  crop  with  an  up 
state  farmer. 

A  list  of  Greeley 's  misjudgments,  from  the  days 
when,  after  he  had  supported  Lincoln's  candidacy,  he 
upheld  peaceable  secession,  down  to  the  summer  of 
1864,  when  he  labored  frantically  to  stop  the  war, 
would  serve  as  a  warning  against  the  deteriorating 
effects  of  journalism  upon  even  a  ready  intellect 
and  a  well-developed  conscience.  It  ought  also  to 
show  the  folly  of  trying  to  play  the  role  of  infallibil 
ity  without  sufficient  preparation.  Greeley  was  not 
the  only  editor  to  whom  this  would  apply;  he  was 
simply  the  most  conspicuous,  because  the  most  in 
fluential;  therefore  I  have  paused  to  describe  him. 
Eventually,  posterity  may  remember  Horace  Greeley 
only  as  the  man  who,  with  unusual  power  of  scold 
ing,  harassing,  irritating,  with  ingenuity  in  uncandid 
criticism,  with  exasperating  self -righteousness  and 
petulance,  never  succeeded  in  exhausting  the  pa 
tience  or  in  shaking  the  magnanimity  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

On  July  7,  1864,  Greeley  wrote  Lincoln  that  he 


174  JOHN  HAY 

had  received  word  from  a  person  who  called  him 
self  William  C.  Jewett,  that  two  ambassadors  of 
"  Davis  &  Co."  were  then  in  Canada,  with  full  power 
to  negotiate  a  peace,  and  that  Jewett  requested  that 
either  Greeley  should  go  at  once  to  Niagara  Falls 
to  confer  with  them,  or  a  safe-conduct  should  be  sent 
to  take  them  to  Washington  to  talk  with  the  Presi 
dent  himself.  Greeley  says:  — 

"I  venture  to  remind  you  that  our  bleeding, 
bankrupt,  almost  dying  country  also  longs  for  peace ; 
shudders  at  the  prospect  of  fresh  conscriptions,  of 
further  wholesale  devastations,  and  of  new  rivers  of 
human  blood.  And  a  widespread  conviction  that  the 
Government  and  its  prominent  supporters  are  not 
anxious  for  peace,  and  do  not  improve  proffered  op 
portunities  to  achieve  it,  is  doing  great  harm  now, 
and  is  morally  certain,  unless  removed,  to  do  far 
greater  in  the  approaching  elections. " 

After  further  lecturing  the  President,  Greeley  sug 
gests  the  following  terms:  — 

"  i.  The  Union  is  restored  and  declared  perpetual. 
2.  Slavery  is  utterly  and  forever  abolished  through 
out  the  same.  3.  A  complete  amnesty  for  all  polit 
ical  offenses.  4.  Payment  of  $400,000,000  to  the 
Slave  States,  pro  rata,  for  their  slaves.  5.  The  Slave 
States  to  be  represented  in  proportion  to  their  popula 
tion.  6.  A  National  Convention  to  be  called  at  once." 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    175 

The  letter  concludes  quite  in  Greeley  Ts  best  vein : — 

"Mr.  President,  I  fear  you  do  not  realize  how  in 
tently  the  people  desire  any  peace  consistent  with 
the  national  integrity  and  honor,  and  how  joyously 
they  would  hail  its  achievement  and  bless  its  authors. 
With  United  States  stocks  worth  but  forty  cents  in 
gold  per  dollar,  and  drafting  about  to  commence 
on  the  third  million  of  Union  soldiers,  can  this  be 
wondered  at?  I  do  not  say  that  a  just  peace  is  now 
p.ttainable,  though  I  believe  it  to  be  so.  But  I  do  say 
that  a  frank  offer  by  you  to  the  insurgents,  of  terms 
which  the  impartial  will  say  ought  to  be  accepted, 
will,  at  the  worst,  prove  an  immense  and  sorely 
needed  advantage  to  the  National  cause;  it  may  save 
us  from  a  Northern  insurrection. " 

President  Lincoln  was  skeptical  in  the  premises, 
but  he  thought  it  wise  to  put  Greeley's  proposal  to 
the  test,  and  accordingly  he  appointed  Greeley  him 
self  his  agent  to  interview  the  negotiators. 

"If  you  can  find  any  person,  anywhere,"  the  Presi 
dent  wrote  on  July  9,  "  professing  to  have  any  prop 
osition  of  Jefferson  Davis  in  writing,  for  peace,  em 
bracing  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  and  abandon 
ment  of  slavery,  whatever  else  it  embraces,  say  to 
him  he  may  come  to  me  with  you,  and  that  if  he 
really  brings  such  proposition  he  shall  at  least  have 
safe-conduct  with  the  paper  (and  without  publicity, 


176  JftHN  HAY 

if  he  chooses)  to  t^Jpoint  where  you  shall  have  met 
him.  The  same,  if  there  be  two  or  more  persons." 

To  this  downright  message  Greeley  replied  quer 
ulously,  declaring  that  he  had  little  heart  in  the  task 
imposed  upon  him  and  that  he  thought  the  negotia 
tors  would  not  "open  their  budget"  to  him.  Still 
hesitating,  he  wrote  on  the  I3th  that  he  had  definite 
information  that  "  two  persons,1  duly  commissioned 
and  empowered  to  negotiate  for  peace,"  were  at 
that  moment  not  far  from  Niagara  Falls  in  Canada, 
and  desirous  of  conferring  with  the  President  him 
self  or  with  such  agents  as  he  might  designate. 

As  Horace  Greeley  had  received  the  President's 
terms  and  promise  of  a  safe-conduct  for  the  Confed 
erates  four  days  before,  this  note  was,  to  say  the 
least,  astonishing.  The  President  cut  short  the  de 
liberate  vacillation  by  telegraphing,  "I  was  not  ex 
pecting  you  to  send  me  a  letter,  but  to  bring  me  a 
man  or  men."  At  the  same  time  he  despatched  Ma 
jor  Hay  to  New  York  with  the  following  letter:  — 

"Yours  of  the  I3th  is  just  received,  and  I  am  dis 
appointed  that  you  have  not  already  reached  here 
with  those  commissioners,  if  they  would  consent  to 
come,  on  being  shown  my  letter  to  you  of  the  9th 
inst.  Show  that  and  this  to  them,  and  if  they  will 

*  *  "Hon.  Clement  C.  Clay,  of  Alabama,  and  Hon.  Jacob  Thomp 
son,  of  Mississippi." 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH   177 

come  on  the  terms  stated  in  the  former,  bring  them. 
I  not  only  intend  a  sincere  effort  for  peace,  but  I 
intend  that  you  shall  be  a  personal  witness  that  it  is 
made."  l 

This  letter  Hay  delivered  to  Greeley  in  New  York 
on  the  i6th.  Greeley  "didn't  like  it,  evidently; 
thought  that  he  was  the  worst  man  that  could  be 
taken  for  that  purpose;  that  as  soon  as  he  arrived 
there  [Niagara]  the  newspapers  would  be  full  of  it; 
that  he  would  be  abused,  blackguarded,  etc.,  etc." 
Still,  if  the  President  insisted,  he  would  go,  provided 
he  received  an  absolute  safe-conduct  for  four  per 
sons.  This  Hay  arranged,  and  Greeley  agreed  to  be 
in  Washington  on  Tuesday  morning,  the  I9th,  with 
the  negotiators,  if  they  would  come. 

"He  was  all  along  opposed  to  the  President  pro 
posing  terms,"  Hay  adds  in  his  Diary.  "He  was  in 
favor  of  some  palaver  anyhow;  wanted  them  to  pro 
pose  terms  which  we  could  not  accept,  if  no  better, 
for  us  to  go  to  the  country  on;  wanted  the  Govern 
ment  to  appear  anxious  for  peace,  and  yet  was 
strenuous  in  demanding  as  our  ultimatum  proper 
terms." 

So  Greeley  journeyed  to  Niagara,  petulant,  un 
easy,  vaguely  suspecting,  perhaps,  that  the  Presi 
dent  had  turned  the  tables  on  him,  and  feeling  some 
1  N.  &  H.,  ix,  189. 


i;8  JOHN  HAY 

doubts  as  to  the  authority  of  the  agents  whom  he 
was  going  to  meet. 

Arrived  at  Niagara,  he  sent  word,  through  "  Colo 
rado"  Jewett,  to  the  representatives  of  "Davis  & 
Co./'  that  he  was  "authorized  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States  to  tender  [them]  his  safe-conduct 
on  the  journey  proposed"  [to  Washington],  and  to 
accompany  them  at  their  earliest  convenience.  He 
omitted  to  state  Mr.  Lincoln's  two  conditions  — 
"the  restoration  of  the  Union,  and  abandonment  of 
slavery";  perhaps  the  omission  was  intentional,  be 
cause  Greeley  was  fixed  in  his  purpose  that  the  Con 
federates  should  propose  their  terms  first.  He  soon 
learned,  however,  that  they  lacked  credentials,  yet 
he  failed  to  realize  that  through  Jewett  they  had 
deceived  him  as  to  their  authority.  Here  was  a 
bizarre  contradiction:  the  infallible  editor  of  the 
Tribune  tricked  by  very  common  adventurers,  who 
now  assured  him  that  they  knew  the  views  of  the 
Confederate  Government  and  that,  if  they  were 
given  a  safe-conduct  to  Richmond,  they  could  eas 
ily  procure  credentials. 

By  this  clever  turn  they  hoped  to  have  it  appear 
to  the  world  that  Lincoln  was  suing  the  Confeder 
ates  for  peace.  Greeley,  instead  of  repudiating  them 
on  discovering  that  they  had  duped  him,  tele 
graphed  to  Washington  the  new  proposal  of  Clay 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        179 

and  Holcombe  (the  fourth  of  the  schemers).  In 
reply,  the  President  wrote  the  following  note,  and 
sent  it  by  Major  Hay  on  the  first  train  to  Niagara:  - 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON 
July  18,  1864. 

To  whom  it  may  concern:  Any  proposition  which 
embraces  the  restoration  of  peace,  the  integrity  of  the 
whole  Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  slavery,  and 
which  comes  by  and  with  an  authority  that  controls 
the  armies  now  at  war  against  the  United  States, 
will  be  received  and  considered  by  the  Executive 
Government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be  met 
by  liberal  terms  on  other  substantial  and  collateral 
points,  and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof  shall  have 
safe-conduct  both  ways. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

This  paper  Major  Hay  handed  to  Greeley  at  the 
International  Hotel,  Niagara,  about  noon  on  July 
20.  Greeley  was  "a  good  deal  cut  up  at  what  he 
called  the  President's  great  mistake  in  refusing  to 
enter  into  negotiations  without  conditions."  He 
seemed  "nettled  and  perplexed,"  possibly  because 
he  began  to  suspect  that  he  had  been  too  credulous. 
Hay  finally  persuaded  Greeley  to  go  with  him  to  the 
Canadian  side  and  deliver  the  President's  letter. 

"  We  got  to  the  Clifton  House,"  Hay  records,  "  and 


i8o  JOHN  HAY 

met  George  N.  Sanders  at  the  door.  .  .  .  Sanders  is 
a  seedy-looking  Rebel,  with  grizzled  whiskers  and 
a  flavor  of  old  clo'.  He  came  up  and  talked  a  few 
commonplaces  with  Greeley  while  we  stood  by  the 
counter.  Our  arrival,  Greeley' s  well-known  person, 
created  a  good  deal  of  interest,  the  bar-room  rapidly 
filling  with  the  curious,  and  the  halls  blooming  sud 
denly  with  wide-eyed  and  pretty  women.  We  went 
up  to  Holcombe's  room,  where  he  was  breakfasting 
or  lunching  —  tea  and  toasting,  at  all  events.  He 
was  a  tall,  solemn,  spare,  false-looking  man,  with 
false  teeth,  false  eyes,  and  false  hair. 

"Mr.  Greeley  said:  'Major  Hay  has  come  from 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  deliver  you  a 
communication  in  writing  and  to  add  a  verbal  mes 
sage  with  which  he  has  been  entrusted.'  I  handed 
him  a  note,  and  told  him  what  the  President  and 
Seward  had  told  me  to  say,  and  I  added  that  I  would 
be  the  bearer  of  anything  they  chose  to  send  by  me 
to  Washington,  or,  if  they  chose  to  wait,  it  could  go 
as  well  by  mail.  He  said : '  Mr.  Clay  is  now  absent  at 
St.  Catherine's.  I  will  telegraph  to  him  at  once,  and 
inform  you  in  the  morning.' 

"  We  got  up  to  go.  He  shook  hands  with  Greeley, 
who  'hoped  to  see  him  again';  with  me;  and  we  went 
down  to  our  carriage.  He  again  accosted  Greeley; 
made  some  remark  about  the  fine  view  from  the 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH    181 

House,  and  said,  'I  wanted  old  Bennett 1  to  come 
up,  but  he  was  afraid  to  come.'  Greeley  answered: 
'  I  expect  to  be  blackguarded  for  what  I  have  done, 
and  I  am  not  allowed  to  explain.  But  all  I  have  done, 
has  been  done  under  instructions/  We  got  in  and 
rode  away.  As  soon  as  the  whole  thing  was  over, 
Greeley  recovered  his  spirits  and  said  he  was  glad 
he  had  come,  —  and  was  very  chatty  and  agreeable 
on  the  way  back  and  at  dinner." 

Before  taking  the  train,  Greeley,  unknown  to 
Hay,  had  an  interview  with  the  shabby  go-between, 
"Colorado"  Jewett,  whom  "he  seems  to  have  au 
thorized  to  continue  to  act  as  his  representative." 
Jewett  informed  his  accomplices  at  the  Clifton,  and 
they  wrote  Greeley  arraigning  the  President  for  his 
breach  of  faith.  Jewett  at  once  gave  their  letter  to 
the  press,  and  its  effect  was  just  what  the  enemies  of 
the  Union  desired.  So  far  as  appears,  Greeley  never 
informed  the  negotiators  of  Lincoln's  promised  safe- 
conduct.  Pretending  that  the  President's  later  note 
canceled  the  earlier,  he  supported  the  denunciation 
of  the  agents  of  "Davis  &  Co." 

On  being  himself  attacked  by  the  loyal  newspa 
pers,  he  threw  the  blame  on  Lincoln.  There  was  a  call 
for  the  correspondence,  and  the  President,  by  pub 
lishing  it,  could  have  given  the  Infallible  One  his 
1  James  Gordon  Bennett,  editor  of  the  New  York  Herald. 


182  JOHN  HAY 

quietus:  but  as  usual  he  would  not  seek  a  personal 
vindication  at  the  risk  of  depressing  public  opinion. 
He  feared  that  it  would  be  "a  disaster  equal  to  the 
loss  of  a  great  battle/'  if  it  were  known  that  the  au 
tocrat  of  the  most  influential  newspaper  in  the  North 
"was  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  for  peace,"  and 
was  "  frantically  denouncing  the  Government  for 
refusing  to  surrender  the  contest."  1 

The  President,  in  his  desire  to  soothe  the  enraged 
patriot,  or  at  least  to  make  him  understand  the 
purpose  of  the  earlier  notes,  invited  Greeley  to  go  to 
Washington.  This  he  declined  in  a  ranting  letter: 
"The  cry  [of  the  Administration],"  he  wrote,  "has 
been  steadily,  No  truce!  No  armistice!  No  negotia 
tion!  No  mediation!  Nothing  but  surrender  at  dis 
cretion  !  I  never  heard  of  such  fatuity  before.  There 
is  nothing  like  it  in  history.  It  must  result  in  disaster, 
or  all  experience  is  delusive."  And  then,  after  insin 
uating  that  the  effort  for  a  tolerable  peace  might 
have  succeeded  if  it  had  been  honest  and  sincere,  Mr. 
Greeley  added:  "I  beg  you,  implore  you,  to  inaugu 
rate  or  invite  proposals  for  peace  forthwith.  And 
in  case  peace  cannot  now  be  made,  consent  to  an 
armistice  for  one  year,  each  party  to  retain,  unmo 
lested,  all  it  now  holds,  but  the  Rebel  ports  to  be 
opened.  Meantime,  let  a  national  convention  be 
1  N.  &  H.,  ix,  198. 


ERRANDS  NORTH  AND  SOUTH        183 

held,  and  there  will  surely  be  no  more  war  at  all 
events."  1 

To  paraphrase  Greeley's  own  expression:  in  the 
history  of  the  Rebellion  there  is  nothing  "for  fatu 
ity"  like  this  outburst  by  the  political  sage,  who 
counted  more  readers  than  any  other  editor  in  the 
United  States. 

Even  after  Lincoln  was  dead,  slavery  abolished, 
the  war  ended,  and  the  Union  saved,  Greeley  stuck 
to  his  false  statement  with  all  the  tenacity  of  the 
self-righteous  when  they  are  caught  erring.2  But 
Hay,  who  took  part  in  the  negotiations  and  had  ac 
cess  to  the  documents,  lived  on  to  tell  the  truth.3 

This  mission,  more  important  in  its  bearing  than 
in  its  immediate  results,  was  the  last  on  which  Lin 
coln  sent  him.  As  on  the  earlier  ones,  he  acquitted 
himself  well  --  was  quick  to  see  and  hear,  trusty  in 
obeying  instructions,  discreet  in  dealing  with  stran 
gers,  unstartled  by  emergencies. 

1  N,  &H.f  ix,  197. 

2  See  his  brief  and  disingenuous  account  of  the  transaction  in  his 
American  Conflict  (New  York,  1866),  II,  664-65,  in  which  he  throws 
all  the  blame  on  Lincoln. 

8  N.  &  H.,  ix,  chap.  8. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   GREAT   COMPANION 

FOR  Hay,  during  those  four  years,  the  daily 
and  often  hourly  companionship  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  the  most  important  influence  of  all. 
His  position  as  private  secretary  not  only  gave  him 
a  knowledge  from  the  inside  of  military  and  politi 
cal  plans,  and  an  acquaintance  with  thousands  of 
persons  whose  collective  motives  and  deeds  were 
woven  into  the  fabric  of  the  Drama,  but  it  enabled 
him  to  observe,  at  closest  range,  the  working  of  the 
mind,  and  the  movement  of  the  heart  and  character 
of  the  ruler  who  has  had  no  peer  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world. 

John  Hay  has  himself  described,  in  a  genial  chap 
ter,1  the  daily  routine  of  life  in  the  White  House. 
The  rush  of  office-seekers  began  on  the  first  day  of 
Lincoln's  administration  and  continued,  with  slight 
fluctuations,  until  the  last  afternoon  of  Lincoln's  life. 
Nicolay,  Hay,  and  the  others  near  the  President 
tried  to  screen  him  from  this  drain  on  his  time  and 
strength ;  but  he  would  not  be  screened.  He  felt  that 
as  the  Head  of  the  Nation  belonged  to  the  whole  pea 
1  Century  Magazine,  November,  1890;  XLI,  33-37. 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  185 

pie,  he  ought  to  be  accessible  to  every  one.  He  un 
derstood,  also,  the  value  of  hearing  opinions,  though 
only  in  a  moment's  talk,  from  every  quarter,  and 
he  could  usually  get  something,  if  it  were  only  a 
quaint  phrase,  even  from  cranks. 

He  was  too  shrewd  a  politician  not  to  avail  him 
self  of  such  opportunities  for  personal  interviews  as 
arose.  The  spoils  system  inevitably  flourished,  be 
cause,  with  the  coming  in  of  a  new  party,  offices  under 
the  Government,  from  top  to  bottom,  were  filled  by 
new  men.  The  outbreak  of  war  created  myriads  of 
other  posts,  departmental,  military,  and  naval.  Un 
der  these  conditions,  fitness  was  not  seldom  over 
looked  :  for  Lincoln  could  not  afford  to  estrange  the 
influential  backers  of  greedy  place-seekers.  The  un 
fathomable  Irony  which  manifests  itself  everywhere 
in  human  affairs,  seemed  bent  on  making  sport  of 
Democracy  when  it  obliged  Lincoln  to  turn  aside 
from  business  of  incalculable  importance,  while  Sen 
ators  urged  upon  him  the  claims  of  their  poor  rela 
tives  to  the  postmasterships  of  insignificant  villages. 

But  "  although  the  continual  contact  with  im 
portunity  which  he  could  not  satisfy,  and  with  dis 
tress  which  he  could  not  always  relieve,  wore  terri 
bly  upon  him  and  made  him  an  old  man  before  his 
time,  he  would  never  take  the  necessary  measures  to 
defend  himself,"  says  Hay.  "...  Henry  Wilson  once 


186  JOHN  HAY 

remonstrated  with  him  about  it:  'You  will  wear 
yourself  out/  He  replied,  with  one  of  those  smiles 
in  which  there  was  so  much  of  sadness,  '  They  don't 
want  much;  they  get  but  little,  and  I  must  see 
them." 

President  Lincoln  rose  early.  In  summer  he  spent 
the  night  at  the  Soldiers'  Home  where  the  heat  was 
less  intense  than  in  the  city;  but  by  eight  o'clock  he 
had  ridden  to  the  White  House  and  was  at  his  desk. 
Long  before  ten  o'clock,  the  stream  of  visitors  poured 
in.  The  Cabinet  met  ordinarily  on  Tuesdays  and 
Fridays.  "  At  luncheon  time,"  Hay  writes,  "he  had 
literally  to  run  the  gauntlet  through  the  crowds  who 
filled  the  corridors  between  his  office  and  the  rooms 
at  the  West  end  of  the  house  occupied  by  the  family. 
The  afternoon  wore  away  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  the  morning;  late  in  the  day  he  usually  drove  for 
an  hour's  airing;  at  six  o'clock  he  dined.  He  was  one 
of  the  most  abstemious  of  men;  the  pleasures  of  the 
table  had  few  attractions  for  him.  His  breakfast  was 
an  egg  and  a  cup  of  coffee;  at  luncheon  he  rarely 
took  more  than  a  biscuit  and  a  glass  of  milk,  a  plate 
of  fruit  in  its  season ;  at  dinner  he  ate  sparingly  of  one 
or  two  courses.  He  drank  little  or  no  wine  .  .  .  and 
never  used  tobacco."1 

"That  there  was  little  gayety  in  the  Executive 
1  Century,  XLI,  34. 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  187 

House  during  his  time,"  hardly  needs  to  be  hinted. 
The  two  younger  boys,  William  and  Thomas,  en 
livened  it  with  their  good-natured,  unrestrained, 
and  unconventional  ways;  but  William  died  in  less 
than  a  year,  leaving  "Tad"  the  only  offshoot  of 
young  life  in  that  somber  household.  Lincoln  him 
self  would  give  free  play  to  his  humor  if  a  few  friends 
were  with  him;  and  he  was  apt,  at  any  time,  to 
flash  out  one  of  the  racy  comments,  or  stories  with 
an  application,  which  his  hearers  never  forgot. 
Lincoln  "read  Shakespeare  more  than  all  other 
writers  together,"  and  he  went  occasionally  to  the 
theater.  His  favorite  plays  were  Hamlet,  Macbeth, 
and  the  Histories,  especially  Richard  II.  He  often 
quoted  from  the  last  the  amaranthine  passage  be 
ginning,  — 

"  Let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  Kings." 

For  relaxation  he  turned  to  Thomas  Hood,  and  to 
Artemus  Ward,  Nasby,  and  other  professional  jokers 
of  the  time.  But  most  of  his  evenings  he  spent  in  his 
office,  unless  there  was  a  dinner-party. 

"Upon  all  but  two  classes,"  Hay  adds,  "the 
President  made  the  impression  of  unusual  power  as 
well  as  unusual  goodness.  He  failed  only  in  the  case 
of  those  who  judged  men  by  a  purely  conventional 
standard  of  breeding,  and  upon  those  so  poisoned 


188  JOHN  HAY 

by  political  hostility  that  the  testimony  of  their 
own  eyes  and  ears  became  untrustworthy.  .  .  .  The 
testimony  of  all  men  admitted  to  his  intimacy  is  that 
he  maintained,  without  the  least  effort  or  assump 
tion,  a  singular  dignity  and  reserve  in  the  midst  of 
his  easiest  conversation. " 

As  I  have  noted  earlier,  Lincoln's  young  secretaries 
came  sooner  than  the  public  to  appreciate  his  great 
ness,  and,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  of  any  one,  they 
shared  the  confidence  of  that  deep,  patient,  reticent 
nature.  Lincoln  discussed  freely  every  topic  except 
himself.  Hay's  Journal,  from  which  many  pithy 
extracts  have  already  been  made,  furnishes  us  some 
of  the  most  vivid  flashlight  pictures  of  Lincoln  in 
personal  moments  or  on  historical  occasions  that 
exist. 

Hay  records  that  on  January  27,  1862,  the  Presi 
dent  issued  his  General  War  Order,  No.  i .  "  He  wrote 
it  without  any  consultation,  and  read  it  to  the  Cabi 
net,  not  for  their  sanction  but  for  their  information. 
From  that  time  he  influenced  actively  the  opera 
tions  of  the  campaign.  He  stopped  going  to  McClel- 
lan's  and  sent  for  the  General  to  come  to  him.  .  .  . 
His  next  order  was  issued  after  a  consultation  with 
all  the  Generals  of  the  Potomac  Army  in  which,  as 
Stan  ton  told  me  next  morning,  'we  saw  ten  Gen 
erals  afraid  to  fight/  The  fighting  Generals  were 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  189 

McDowell,  Sumner,  Heintzelman  and  Keyes,  and 
Banks.  These  were  placed  next  day  at  the  head 
of  the  Army  Corps.  So  things  began  to  look  vigor 


ous." 


"Sunday  morning,  the  Qth  of  March  [1862],  the 
news  of  the  Merrimac's  frolic  came  here.  Stanton 
was  fearfully  stampeded.  He  said  they  would  cap 
ture  our  fleet,  take  Fort  Monroe,  be  in  Washington 
before  night.  The  President  thought  it  was  a  great 
bore,  but  blew  less  than  Stanton.  As  the  day  went 
on,  the  news  grew  better.  And  at  four  o'clock  the 
telegraph  was  completed,  and  we  heard  of  the  splen 
did  performance  of  the  Monitor.1' 

Lincoln  acted  so  simply,  not  only  dispensing  with 
the  forms  of  command  but  often  seeming  to  wait  on 
advice,  that  it  took  some  time  for  his  Cabinet  officers 
to  understand  that  he  was,  indeed,  master.  Thus 
before  issuing  his  Order  No.  3,  deposing  McClellan, 
he  purposely  omitted  to  consult  Blair,  who  was  op 
posed  to  the  treatment  of  Fremont.  Blair  published 
a  letter  discourteous  to  the  President,  but  when  he 
went  to  explain  it,  Lincoln,  instead  of  disciplining 
him,  "told  him  he  was  too  busy  to  quarrel  with  him," 
adding  that  if  Blair  "did  n't  show  him  the  letter,  he 
would  probably  never  see  it." 

Patient  though  he  was,  and  charitable  in  finding 
excuses  for  the  shortcomings  of  the  generals  in  the 


190  JOHN  HAY 

field,  Lincoln  felt  the  reverses  keenly.  Witness  this 
reference  to  him  at  the  time  of  the  Second  Battle  of 
Bull  Run. 

"Everything  seemed  to  be  going  well  and  hilari 
ous  on  Saturday "  (August  30,  1862),  writes  Hay, 
"and  we  went  to  bed  expecting  glad  tidings  at  sun 
rise.  But  about  eight  o'clock  the  President  came  to 
my  room  as  I  was  dressing,  and  calling  me  out,  said: 
'Well,  John,  we  are  whipped  again,  I  am  afraid. 
The  enemy  reinforced  on  Pope  and  drove  back  his 
left  wing,  and  he  has  retired  on  Centreville,  where 
he  says  he  will  be  able  to  hold  his  men.  I  don't  like 
that  expression.  I  don't  like  to  hear  him  admit  that 
his  men  need  holding/ 

"After  a  while,  however,  things  began  to  look 
better,  and  people's  spirits  rose  as  the  heavens 
cleared.  The  President  was  in  a  singularly  defiant 
tone  of  mind.  He  often  repeated, '  We  must  hurt  this 
enemy  before  it  goes  away/  And  this  morning, 
Monday  [September  i],  he  said  to  me,  when  I  made 
a  remark  in  regard  to  the  bad  look  of  things:  'No, 
Mr.  Hay,  we  must  whip  these  people  now.  Pope  must 
fight  them;  if  they  are  too  strong  for  him,  he  can 
gradually  retire  to  these  fortifications.  If  this  be 
not  so  —  if  we  are  really  whipped,  and  to  be  whipped 
—  we  may  as  well  stop  fighting." 

The  North,  indignant  at  Pope's  disaster,  which 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  191 

the  public  attributed  to  McClelland  lack  of  support, 
demanded  that  McClellan  be  cashiered.  The  Cabi 
net  was  unanimous  against  him.  But  Lincoln  would 
not  be  persuaded.  "  He  has  acted  badly  in  this  mat 
ter,"  he  said  to  Hay,  "  but  we  must  use  what  tools  we 
have.  There  is  no  man  in  the  army  who  can  man 
these  fortifications  and  lick  these  troops  of  ours  into 
shape  half  as  well  as  he.  Unquestionably  he  has 
acted  badly  toward  Pope.  He  wanted  him  to  fail. 
That  is  unpardonable.  But  he  is  too  useful  just 
now  to  sacrifice." 

There  spoke  the  man  of  sober  second  thought, 
whom  neither  popular  clamor  nor  personal  pique 
could  move. 

Under  date,  September  23,  1862,  we  have  a  still 
more  memorable  entry.  "The  President  wrote  the 
[Emancipation]  Proclamation  on  Sunday  morning, 
[September  21]  carefully.  He  called  the  Cabinet 
together  on  Monday,  September  22,  made  a  little  talk 
to  them,  and  read  the  momentous  document.  Mr. 
Blair  and  Mr.  Bates  made  objections;  otherwise  the 
Cabinet  was  unanimous.  The  next  day  Mr.  Blair, 
who  had  promised  to  file  his  objections,  sent  a  note 
stating  that,  as  his  objections  were  only  to  the  time 
of  the  act,  he  would  not  file  them  lest  they  should 
be  subject  to  misconstruction." 

News  traveled  with  desperate  slowness  to  those 


192  JOHN  HAY 

kept  in  suspense  at  the  White  House  during  a  crisis. 
The  battle  of  Gettysburg  ended  at  dark  on  July  3, 
1863 ;  and  yet  for  more  than  a  week  following,  doubt 
and  hope  alternated  in  Lincoln's  mind  as  to  whether 
the  Union  general  would  complete  his  victory  by 
destroying  Lee's  army.  Hay  writes: 

"  Saturday,  July  n,  1863.  The  President  seemed 
in  specially  good  humor  to-day,  as  he  had  pretty 
good  evidence  that  the  enemy  were  still  on  the  North 
side  of  the  Potomac,  and  Meade  had  announced  his 
intention  of  attacking  them  in  the  morning.  The 
President  seemed  very  happy  in  the  prospect  of  a 
brilliant  success.  .  .  . 

"Sunday,  I2th  July.  Rained  all  the  afternoon. 
Have  not  yet  heard  of  Meade's  expected  attack. 

"Monday,  ijth.  The  President  begins  to  grow 
anxious  and  impatient  about  Meade's  silence.  I 
thought  and  told  him  there  was  nothing  to  prevent 
the  enemy  from  getting  away  by  the  Falling  Waters 
if  they  were  not  vigorously  attacked.  .  .  .  Nothing 
can  save  them  if  Meade  does  his  duty.  I  doubt 
him.  He  is  an  engineer. 

"i4th  July.  This  morning  the  President  seemed 
depressed  by  Meade's  despatches  of  last  night. 
They  were  so  cautiously  and  almost  timidly  worded 
—  talking  about  reconnoitring  to  find  the  enemy's 
weak  places,  and  other  such.  .  .  .  About  noon  came 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  193 

the  despatches  stating  that  our  worst  fears  were  true. 
The  enemy  had  gotten  away  unhurt.  The  President 
was  deeply  grieved.  '  We  had  them  within  our  grasp, ' 
he  said ;  '  we  had  only  to  stretch  forth  our  hands  and 
they  were  ours.  And  nothing  I  could  say  or  do  could 
make  the  army  move/ 

"  Several  days  ago  he  sent  a  despatch  to  Meade 
which  must  have  cut  like  a  scourge,  but  Meade  re 
turned  so  reasonable  and  earnest  reply  that  the 
President  concluded  he  knew  best  what  he  was  doing, 
and  was  reconciled  to  the  apparent  inaction,  which 
he  hoped  was  merely  apparent. 

"  Every  day  he  has  watched  the  progress  of  the 
army  with  agonizing  impatience,  hope  struggling 
with  fear.  He  has  never  been  easy  in  his  own  mind 
about  General  Meade  since  Meade's  General  Order 
in  which  he  called  on  his  troops  to  drive  the  invader 
from  our  soil.  The  President  says:  'This  is  a  dread 
ful  reminiscence  of  McClellan.  The  same  spirit  that 
moved  McClellan  to  claim  a  great  victory  because 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  were  safe.  The  hearts 
of  ten  million  people  sunk  within  them  when  McClel 
lan  raised  that  shout  last  fall.  Will  our  Generals 
never  get  that  idea  out  of  their  heads?  The  whole 
country  is  our  soil/" 

"  1 5th  July.  Robert  Lincoln  says  the  President  is 
silently  but  deeply  grieved  about  the  escape  of  Lee. 


194  JOHN  HAY 

He  said : '  If  I  had  gone  up  there  I  could  have  whipped 
them  myself.'" 

And  Hay  adds:  "  I  know  he  had  that  idea." 

To  picture  Lincoln  commanding  at  Gettysburg, 
crushing  Lee's  army,  and  with  it  the  Rebellion,  in  the 
most  significant  battle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
dazzles  the  imagination.  More  than  one  of  the  Union 
generals  regarded  Lincoln  as  possessing  unusual 
qualifications  as  a  commander:  but  could  he  have 
compassed  that? 

On  July  1 6th:  "General  Wadsworth  came  in.  He 
said  in  answer  to  Abe's  question,  'Why  did  Lee 
escape?'  'Because  nobody  stopped  him,'  rather 
gruffly.  Wadsworth  says  that  a  council  of  war  of  corps 
commanders,  held  on  Sunday,  the  I2th  ...  on  the 
question  of  fight  or  no  fight,  the  weight  of  authority 
was  against  fighting.  French,  Sedgwick,  Slocum,  and 
Sykes  strenuously  opposed  a  fight.  Meade  was  in 
favor  of  it.  So  was  Warren,  who  did  most  of  the 
talking  on  that  side,  and  Pleasonton  was  very  eager 
for  it,  as  also  was  Wadsworth  himself.  The  non- 
fighters  thought,  or  seemed  to  think,  that  if  we  did 
not  attack,  the  enemy  would,  and  even  Meade 
thought  he  was  in  for  action,  had  no  idea  that  the 
enemy  intended  to  get  away  at  once.  Howard  had 
little  to  say  on  the  subject. 

"Meade  was  in  favor  of  attacking  in  three  col- 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  195 

umns  of  20,000  men  each.  Wadsworth  was  in  favor 
of  doing  as  Stonewall  Jackson  did  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  double  up  the  left,  and  drive  them  down  on 
Williamsport.  I  do  not  question  that  either  plan 
would  have  succeeded.  Wadsworth  said  to  Hunter, 
who  sat  beside  him : l  General,  there  are  a  good  many 
officers  of  the  regular  army  who  have  not  yet  en 
tirely  lost  the  West  Point  idea  of  Southern  superior 
ity.  That  sometimes  accounts  for  an  otherwise  un 
accountable  slowness  of  attack/ 

"  igth  July,  Sunday.  The  President  was  in  very 
good  humor;  ...  in  the  afternoon  he  and  I  were 
talking  about  the  position  at  Williamsport  the  other 
day.  He  said :  '  Our  army  held  the  war  in  the  hollow 
of  their  hand,  and  they  would  not  close  it.'  Again 
he  said:  'We  had  gone  all  through  the  labor  of  till 
ing  and  planting  an  enormous  crop,  and  when  it  was 
ripe  we  did  not  harvest  it!  Still',  he  added,  'I  am 
very,  very  grateful  to  Meade  for  the  great  service  he 
did  at  Gettysburg/'1 

Characteristic  is  this  last  sentence  of  Lincoln's 
indefectible  sense  of  justice! 

Another  characteristic  trait  —  his  mercifulness  — 
appears  in  this  episode:  — 

"  To-day  [July  18]  we  spent  six  hours  deciding 
on  Court  Martials,  the  President,  Judge  Holt  and 
I.  I  was  amused  at  the  eagerness  with  which  the 


196  JOHN   HAY 

President  caught  at  any  fact  which  would  justify 
him  in  saving  the  life  of  a  condemned  soldier.  He 
was  only  merciless  in  cases  where  meanness  or  cruelty 
was  shown.  Cases  of  cowardice  he  was  specially 
averse  to  punishing  with  death.  He  said  it  would 
frighten  the  poor  fellows  too  terribly  to  shoot  them. 
.  .  .  One  fellow  who  had  deserted,  and  escaped,  after 
conviction,  into  Mexico,  he  sentenced,  saying,  '  We 
will  condemn  him  as  they  used  to  sell  hogs  in  Indiana, 
as  they  run/* 

Without  extraordinary  power  of  resilience,  Lincoln 
could  hardly  have  stood  up  against  the  disappoint 
ments  and  failures  of  the  army,  combined  with  the 
unremitted  attacks  of  political  opponents  and  the 
fault-finding  of  nominal  friends,  which  he  had  to 
endure  day  by  day  and  year  by  year.  His  misunder 
stood  liking  for  humor  was  one  of  the  signs  of  his 
fundamental  health.  In  the  summer  of  1863,  politi 
cians  were  already  discussing  whom  to  elect  to  suc 
ceed  him  as  President.  In  his  own  Cabinet  he  had 
competitors.  Yet  he  was  neither  angered  by  such 
disloyalty  nor  exasperated  by  the  readiness  of  party 
leaders  to  throw  him  over.  He  saw  the  irony  of  being 
the  victim  of  such  a  conspiracy. 

On  August  7,  1863,  only  a  month  after  Gettys 
burg,  Hay  writes  to  Nicolay:  - 

"The  Tycoon  is  in  fine  whack.  I  have  rarely  seen 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  197 

him  more  serene  and  busy.  He  is  managing  this  war, 
the  draft,  foreign  relations,  and  planning  a  recon 
struction  of  the  Union,  all  at  once.  I  never  knew  with 
what  a  tyrannous  authority  he  rules  the  Cabinet  till 
now.  The  most  important  things  he  decides,  and 
there  is  no  cavil.  I  am  growing  more  convinced  that 
the  good  of  the  country  absolutely  demands  that  he 
should  be  kept  where  he  is  till  this  thing  is  over. 
There  is  no  man  in  the  country  so  wise,  so  gentle 
and  so  firm." 

On  August  9,  1863,  Hay  says:  "This  being  Sunday 
and  a  fine  day  I  went  down  with  the  President  to 
have  his  picture  taken  at  Gardner's.  He  was  in  very 
good  spirits.  He  thinks  that  the  Rebel  power  is  at 
last  beginning  to  disintegrate;  that  they  will  break  to 
pieces  if  we  only  stand  firm  now.  Referring  to  the 
controversy  between  two  factions  at  Richmond,  one 
of  whom  believed  still  in  foreign  intervention,  North 
ern  treason  and  other  chimaeras;  and  the  other,  the 
administration  party,  trusts  to  nothing  but  the 
army,  he  said:  '  [Jefferson]  Davis  is  right.  His  army 
is  his  only  hope,  not  only  against  us,  but  against  his 
own  people.  If  that  were  crushed,  the  people  would 
be  ready  to  swing  back  to  their  old  bearings.' ' 

Hay  accompanied  Lincoln  to  inspect  the  statuary 
of  the  East  pediment  of  the  Capitol,  and  the  Presi 
dent,  with  the  eye  of  an  expert,  objected  to  the 


198  JOHN  HAY 

statue  of  the  Woodchopper,  by  Powers,  "as  he  did 
not  make  a  sufficiently  clean  cut/'  On  two  evenings 
they  tried  a  new  repeating  rifle,  with  which  "the 
President  made  some  pretty  good  shots/*  An  irre 
pressible  patriot  came  up  and,  "  seeing  the  gun  recoil 
slightly,  said  it  would  n't  do;  too  much  powder;  a 
good  piece  of  audience  should  n't  rekyle;  if  it  did  at 
all,  it  should  rekyle  a  little  forrid."  On  another 
evening,  they  visited  the  Observatory,  while  "the 
President  took  a  look  at  the  moon  and  Arcturus.  I 
went  with  him  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  and  he  read 
Shakespeare  to  me,  the  end  of  Henry  V  and  the 
beginning  of  Richard  III,  till  my  heavy  eyelids 
caught  his  considerate  notice,  and  he  sent  me  to 
bed." 

Of  Lincoln's  unconventional  ways  these  two  ex 
tracts  tell :  - 

"The  President  came  in  last  night  in  his  shirt  and 
told  me  of  the  retirement  of  the  enemy  from  his 
works  at  Spottsylvania,  and  our  pursuit.  I  compli 
mented  him  on  the  amount  of  underpinning  he  still 
has  left,  and  he  said  he  weighed  180  pounds.  Impor 
tant  if  true."  (May  14,  1864.) 

"A  little  after  midnight  as  I  was  writing  those  last 
lines,  the  President  came  into  the  office  laughing, 
with  a  volume  of  Hood's  Works  in  his  hand,  to  show 
Nicolay  and  me  the  little  caricature,  'An  Unfortu- 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  199 

nate  Bee-ing ' ;  seemingly  utterly  unconscious  that  he, 
with  his  short  shirt  hanging  about  his  long  legs,  and 
setting  out  behind  like  the  tail  feathers  of  an  enor 
mous  ostrich,  was  infinitely  funnier  than  anything 
in  the  book  he  was  laughing  at.  What  a  man  it  is! 
Occupied  all  day  with  matters  of  vast  moment, 
deeply  anxious  about  the  fate  of  the  greatest  army 
of  the  world,  with  his  own  plans  and  future  hanging 
on  the  events  of  the  passing  hour,  he  yet  has  such 
a  wealth  of  simple  bonhommie  and  good  fellowship 
that  he  gets  out  of  bed  and  perambulates  the  house 
in  his  shirt  to  find  us,  that  we  may  share  with  him 
the  fun  of  poor  Hood's  queer  little  conceits."  (April 
30,  1864.) 

The  late  Richard  Watson  Gilder  once  said  that 
amid  all  his  trials  Lincoln  had  one  compensation 
in  the  White  House  —  John  Hay.  Incidents  such  as 
these  confirm  him. 

On  September  u,  1863,  Hay  writes  to  Nicolay, 
not  yet  returned  from  a  trip  to  the  Rocky  Mountains : 
11  You  may  talk  as  you  please  of  the  Abolition  Cabal 
directing  affairs  from  Washington ;  some  well-mean 
ing  newspapers  advise  the  President  to  keep  his  fin 
gers  out  of  the  military  pie  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
The  truth  is,  if  he  did,  the  pie  would  be  a  sorry  mess. 
The  old  man  sits  here  and  wields,  like  a  backwoods 
Jupiter,  the  bolts  of  war  and  the  machinery  of  gov- 


200  JOHN  HAY 

ernment  with  a  hand  especially  steady  and  equally 
firm. 

"  His  last  letter  l  is  a  great  thing.  Some  hideously 
bad  rhetoric — some  indecorums  that  are  infamous — 
yet  the  whole  letter  takes  its  solid  place  in  history  as 
a  great  utterance  of  a  great  man.  The  whole  Cabinet 
could  not  have  tinkered  up  a  letter  which  could  have 
been  compared  with  it.  He  can  rake  a  sophism  out  of 
its  hole  better  than  all  the  trained  logicians  of  all  the 
schools.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  nation  is  worthy 
of  him  for  another  term.  I  know  the  people  want 
him.  There  is  no  mistaking  that  fact.  But  politi 
cians  are  strong  yet,  and  he  is  not  their  'kind  of  a 
cat/  I  hope  God  won't  see  fit  to  scourge  us  for  our 
sins  by  any  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  prominent 
candidates  on  the  ground." 

On  September  23,  bad  news  came  from  General 
Rosecrans,  who  was  expected  to  defeat  the  Confed 
erate  army  round  Chattanooga.  Hay  was  at  the  War 
Department  when  "they  were  trying  to  decipher  an 
intricate  message  from  Rosecrans  giving  reasons 
for  the  failure  of  the  battle.  The  Secretary  [Stanton] 
says: '  I  know  the  reason  well  enough.  Rosecrans  ran 
away  from  his  fighting  men  and  did  not  st6p  for 
thirteen  miles.  .  .  .  No,  they  need  not  shuffle  it  off 

1  Dated  August  26, 1863,  to  James  B.  Conkling,  to  be  read  at  the 
Illinois  Republican  Convention.  N.  &  H.,  vn,  380-84. 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  201 

on  McCook.  He  is  not  much  of  a  soldier.  I  never 
was  in  favor  of  him  for  a  Major- General.  But  he  is 
not  accountable  for  this  business.  He  and  Crittenden 
both  made  pretty  good  time  away  from  the  fight  to 
Chattanooga,  but  Rosecrans  beat  them  both." 

Then  Hay  hurried  "out  to  the  Soldiers'  Home 
through  the  splendid  moonlight"  to  ask  the  Presi 
dent  to  attend  a  council  at  the  War  Department  that 
night.  "  [I]  found  the  President  abed.  I  delivered 
my  message  to  him  as  he  dressed  himself,  and  he  was 
considerably  disturbed.  I  assured  him  as  far  as  I 
could  that  it  meant  nothing  serious,  but  he  thought 
otherwise,  as  it  was  the  first  time  Stanton  had  ever 
sent  for  him.  When  we  got  in,  however,  we  found  a 
despatch  from  Rosecrans  stating  that  he  could  hold 
Chattanooga  against  double  his  number;  could  not 
be  taken  until  after  a  great  battle;  his  stampede  evi 
dently  over." 

The  loyal  secretary,  on  returning  from  a  visit  to 
New  York,  told  the  President  of  the  evidence  he 
had  seen  there  of  the  conduct  of  Secretary  Chase  "in 
trying  to  cut  under"  for  the  Republican  nomination. 
Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "it  was  very  bad  taste,  but  he  had 
determined  to  shut  his  eyes  to  all  these  performances; 
that  Chase  made  a  good  Secretary,  and  that  he 
would  keep  him  where  he  is:  if  he  becomes  President, 
all  right!  I  hope  we  may  never  have  a  worse  man. 


202  JOHN  HAY 

I  have  all  along  seen  clearly  his  plan  of  strengthen 
ing  himself.  Whenever  he  sees  that  an  important 
matter  is  troubling  me,  if  I  am  compelled  to  decide 
it  in  a  way  to  give  offence  to  a  man  of  some  influence, 
he  always  ranges  himself  in  opposition  to  me,  and 
persuades  the  victim  that  he  [Chase]  would  have 
arranged  it  very  differently.  It  was  so  with  Gen'l 
Fremont,  -  -  with  Gen'l  Hunter,  when  I  annulled  his 
hasty  proclamation, — with  Gen'l  Butler,  when  he 
was  recalled  from  New  Orleans,  --  with  the  Missouri 
people,  when  they  called  the  other  day.  I  am  entirely 
indifferent  to  his  success  or  failure  in  these  schemes, 
so  long  as  he  does  his  duty  as  the  head  of  the  Treas 
ury  Department." 

Magnanimity  such  as  this  has  had  few  parallels. 
It  would  be  unthinkable  in  the  case  of  a  Richelieu  or 
a  Frederick  or  a  Bismarck. 

Lincoln  continued  to  appoint,  at  Chase's  sugges 
tion,  officials  who  would  work  in  Chase's  interest. 
When  Hay  remonstrated,  "he  laughed  on,  and  said 
he  was  sorry  the  thing  had  begun,  for  though  the 
matter  did  not  annoy  him,  his  friends  insisted  that  it 
ought  to."  But  by  an  adroit  turn  of  the  tables,  the 
President,  supporting  Seward  in  the  raid  which  the 
Senate  made  on  him,  caused  the  too  impetuous 
Chase  to  resign.  Chase  supposed  that  he  would 
thereby  bring  the  President  to  terms.  Far  from  it. 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  203 

"When  Chase  sent  in  his  resignation,"  the  "back 
woods  Jupiter"  confided  to  Hay,  "I  saw  that  the 
game  was  in  my  own  hands,  and  I  put  it  through. 
When  I  had  settled  this  important  business  at  last 
with  much  labor  and  to  my  entire  satisfaction,  into 
my  room  one  day  walked  D.  D.  Field  and  G.  Op- 
dycke,  and  began  a  new  attack  upon  me  to  remove 
Seward.  For  once  in  my  life  I  rather  gave  my  temper 

the  rein,  and  I  talked  to  those  men  pretty  d d 

plainly.  Opdycke  may  be  right  in  being  cool  to  me. 
I  may  have  given  him  reason  this  morning."  (Octo 
ber  30,  1863.) 

Memorable  is  Hay's  account  of  the  trip  to  Gettys 
burg,  where  President  Lincoln  spoke  at  the  consecra 
tion  of  the  Soldiers'  Cemetery.  The  Presidential 
party  left  Washington  on  November  18,  1863.  "On 
our  train  were  the  President,  Seward,  Usher  and 
Blair;  Nicolay  and  myself;  Mercier  and  Admiral 
Raymond;  Bertinatti  and  Capt.  Isotta,  and  Lieut. 
Martinez  and  C.  M.  Wise ;  W.  McVeagh J ;  McDougal 
of  Canada;  and  one  or  two  others.  At  Baltimore, 
Schenck's  staff  joined  us. 

"Just  before  we  arrived  at  Gettysburg,  the  Presi 
dent  got  into  a  little  talk  with  McVeagh  about  Mis 
souri  affairs.     McVeagh  talked  radicalism  until  he 
learned  he  was  talking  recklessly.  .  .  . 
1  Wayne  MacVeagh. 


204  JOHN  HAY 

"At  Gettysburg  the  President  went  to  Mr.  Wills, 
who  expected  him,  and  our  party  broke  up.  Mo 
Veagh,  young  Stan  ton  and  I  foraged  around  for  a 
while  —  walked  out  to  the  College,  got  a  chafing 
dish  of  oysters,  then  some  supper,  and,  finally,  loaf 
ing  around  to  the  Court  House,  where  Lamon  was 
holding  a  meeting  of  marshals,  we  found  Forney,1 
and  went  around  to  his  place,  .  .  .  and  drank  a  little 
whiskey  with  him.  He  had  been  drinking  a  good  deal 
during  the  day,  and  was  getting  to  feel  a  little  ugly 
and  dangerous.  He  was  particularly  bitter  on  M[ont- 
gomery]  Blair.  McVeagh  was  telling  him  that  he 
pitched  into  the  President  coming  up,  and  told  him 
some  truths.  He  said  the  President  got  a  good  deal 
of  that,  from  time  to  time,  and  needed  it. 

"He  says,  'Hay,  you  are  a  fortunate  man.  You 
have  kept  yourself  aloof  from  your  office.  I  know  an 
old  fellow  over  seventy,  who  was  Private  Secretary 
to  Madison.  He  thought  there  was  something  solemn 
and  memorable  in  it.  Hay  has  laughed  through  his 
term/  .  .  . 

"We  went  out  after  a  while,  following  the  music 
to  hear  the  serenades.  The  President  appeared  at  the 
door,  said  half  a  dozen  words  meaning  nothing,  and 
went  in.  Seward,  who  was  staying  around  the  corner 

1  John  W.  Forney,  a  notorious  journalist  in  Washington  and 
Philadelphia. 


THE   GREAT   COMPANION  205 

at  Harper's,  was  called  out,  and  spoke  so  indistinctly 
that  I  did  not  hear  a  word  of  what  he  was  saying. 
Forney  and  McVeagh  were  still  growling  about 
Blair.  We  went  back  to  Forney's  room,  having 
picked  up  Nicolay,  and  drank  more  whiskey.  Nicolay 
sang  his  little  song  of  the  'Three  Thieves,'  and  we 
then  sang  'John  Brown.'  At  last  we  proposed  that 
Forney  should  make  a  speech,  and  two  or  three 
started  out  ...  to  get  a  band  to  serenade  him.  I 
staid  with  him;  as  did  Stanton  and  McVeagh.  He 
still  growled  quietly,  and  I  thought  he  was  going  to 
do  something  imprudent." 

Then  follows  an  account  of  the  serenade,  and  of 
the  bibulous  Forney's  speech,  in  which,  in  tipsy 
fashion,  he  mingled  drollery  and  gravity.  When  the 
crowd  greeted  him  with  shouts,  he  said :  "  My  friends, 
these  are  the  first  hearty  cheers  I  have  heard  to 
night.  You  gave  no  such  cheers  to  your  President 
down  the  street.  Do  you  know  what  you  owe  to  that 
great  man?  You  owe  your  country  —  you  owe  your 
name  as  American  Citizens."  After  "  very  much  of 
this,  "Hay  adds,  "W.  McVeagh  made  a  most  touch 
ing  and  beautiful  spurt  of  five  minutes,  and  Judge 
Stevenson  of  Pennsylvania  spoke  effectively  and 
acceptably  to  the  people.  'That  speech  [of  For 
ney's]  must  not  be  written  out  yet,'  says  Young. 
'He  will  see  further  about  it  when  he  gets  sober,'  as 


206  JOHN   HAY 

we  went  upstairs.  We  sang  'John  Brown'  and  went 
home." 

Quite  Shakespearean  is  this  low  comedy  interlude, 
coming  just  before  the  stately,  dramatic  scene  of 
consecration.  Perhaps,  after  all,  Nature  sometimes 
emulates  Shakespeare. 

"  In  the  morning,"  of  the  ipth,  Hay  continues,  "  I 
got  a  beast  and  rode  out  with  the  President  and 
suite  to  the  Cemetery  in  procession.  The  procession 
formed  itself  in  an  orphanly  sort  of  way,  and  moved 
out  with  very  little  help  from  anybody;  and  after  a 
little  delay  Mr.  Everett  took  his  place  on  the 
stand,  —  and  Mr.  Stockton  made  a  prayer  which 
thought  it  was  an  oration,  —  and  Mr.  Everett  spoke 
as  he  always  does,  perfectly;  and  the  President,  in  a 
firm,  free  way,  with  more  grace  than  is  his  wont, 
said  his  half-dozen  lines  of  consecration,  —  and  the 
music  wailed,  and  we  went  home  through  crowded 
and  cheering  streets. 

"I  met  Gen'l  Cameron  after  coming  in,  and  he, 
McVeagh  and  I,  went  down  to  dinner  on  board  the 
N.  C.  R.  R.  car.  I  was  more  than  usually  struck  by 
the  intimate  jovial  relations  that  exist  between  men 
that  hate  and  detest  each  other  as  cordially  as  do 
those  Pennsylvania  politicians.1 

1  General  Simon  Cameron's  daughter  became,  in  1866,  the  second 
wife  of  Wayne  MacVeagh. 


_. 


A<S-I  t*^o,~*.* 


dv       JTtr -£-^L£        /"i*-^ 


/ 


PAGE   OF    HAY'S    DIARY   RELATING   TO   THE   CONSECRATION    OF    THE 
MILITARY  CEMETERY  AT  GETTYSBURG,  NOV.   19,  1863 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  207 

"  We  came  home  the  night  of  the  iQth." 

Though  brief,  Hay's  description  of  the  delivery  of 
the  Gettysburg  address  serves.  In  the  "History," 
he  and  Nicolay  devote  a  dozen  pages  to  the  occasion, 
and,  writing  by  the  focused  light  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  they  assign  to  it  an  immediate  recognition 
which  very  few  of  those  who  heard  it  were  aware  of. 
It  was  Edward  Everett's  monumental  oration  — 
which  he  did  "  perfectly,  as  he  always  does  "  -that 
carried  the  day.  After  that,  Lincoln's  few  sentences 
seemed  almost  inadequate;  or,  at  best,  they  came 
like  the  benediction,  which  you  forget,  after  an 
impressive  sermon,  which  you  remember.  To-day, 
however,  Everett's  marmoreal  periods  move  no 
body,  while  Lincoln's  words  of  living  flame  bid  fair 
to  light  and  heat  many  generations.  Emotion,  not 
marble,  is  the  medium  of  enduring  eloquence. 

The  Diary,  in  spite  of  gaps,  when  Hay  was  too 
busy  to  write,  reflects  the  variety  of  experiences 
which  came  to  him  day  by  day  at  Lincoln's 
elbow. 

On  November  22,  1863,  he  notes  that  "  the  Presi 
dent  is  very  anxious  about  Burnside."  On  the  24th, 
the  tone  changes.  "  To-night  the  President  said  he 
was  much  relieved  at  hearing  from  Foster  that  there 
was  firing  at  Knoxville  yesterday.  He  said  anything 
showing  that  Burnside  was  not  overwhelmed  was 


208  JOHN   HAY 

cheering:  Like  Sallie  Carter,  when  she  heard  one 
of  her  children  squall,  would  say,  'There  goes  one  of 
my  young  ones,  not  dead  yet,  bless  the  Lord!'*' 

On  December  10,  we  learn  that  Sumner  spoke  with 
great  gratification  of  Lincoln's  recent  message  to 
Congress.  "The  President  repeated,  what  he  has 
often  said  before,  that  there  is  no  essential  contest 
between  loyal  men  on  this  subject,  if  they  consider 
it  reasonably.  The  only  question  is:  Who  con 
stitute  the  State?  When  that  is  decided,  the  solu 
tion  of  subsequent  questions  is  easy.  He  says  that 
he  wrote  in  the  Message  originally  that  he  considered 
the  discussion  as  to  whether  a  State  has  been  at  any 
time  out  of  the  Union,  as  vain  and  profitless.  We 
know  that  they  were  —  we  trust  they  shall  be  —  in 
the  Union.  It  does  not  greatly  matter  whether  in 
the  mean  time,  they  shall  be  considered  to  have  been 
in  or  out.  But  he  afterwards  considered  that  the  4th 
Section,  4th  Article  of  the  Constitution,  empowers 
him  to  grant  protection  to  States  in  the  Union,  and 
it  will  not  do  ever  to  admit  that  these  States  have 
at  any  time  been  out.  So  he  erased  that  sentence  as 
possibly  suggestive  of  evil.  He  preferred,  he  said,  to 
stand  firmly  based  on  the  Constitution  rather  than 
work  in  the  air." 

Another  turn  in  the  whirligig  of  experiences!  On 
December  13,  1863,  Hackett,  the  actor,  spent  the 


THE  GREAT   COMPANION  209 

evening  at  the  White  House,  and  in  their  talk  the 
President  showed  "a  very  intimate  knowledge  of 
those  plays  of  Shakespeare  where  Falstaff  figures. 
He  was  particularly  anxious  to  know  why  one  of  the 
best  scenes  in  the  play  -  -  that  where  Falstaff  and 
Prince  Hal  alternately  assume  the  character  of  the 
King  —  is  omitted  in  the  representation.  Hackett 
says  it  is  admirable  to  read,  but  ineffective  on  the 
stage."  Two  nights  later  the  President  took  his  sec 
retaries  to  Ford's  Theatre  to  see  Hackett  as  Falstaff 
in  Henry  IV.  He  thought  that  Hackett  misread  the 
line,  "mainly  thrust  at  me,"  which  should  be 
" mainly  thrust  at  me."  Hay  dissented.  ''The  Presi 
dent  thinks  the  dying  speech  of  Hotspur  an  unnatu 
ral  and  unworthy  thing  —  and  who  does  not?"  l 

And  here  is  the  first  record  of  a  famous  saying. 
"The  President  to-night  [December  23,  1863]  had  a 
dream:  He  was  in  a  party  of  plain  people,  and  as  it 
became  known  who  he  was,  they  began  to  comment 
on  his  appearance.  One  of  them  said :  '  He  is  a  very 
common-looking  man/  The  President  replied:  'The 
Lord  prefers  common-looking  people.  That  is  the 
reason  he  makes  so  many  of  them/" 

Among  other  duties,  it  fell  to  Hay  to  act  as  guide 

1  Lincoln's  letter  of  August  17,  1863,  to  Hackett  is  well  known. 
In  it  he  says:  "  I  think  nothing  equals  Macbeth:'  Also  that  he  thinks 
the  King's  soliloquy  in  Hamlet,  "  Oh,  my  offence  is  rank,"  surpasses 
Hamlet's  own,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be." 


210  JOHN  HAY 

to  persons  of  importance.  One  such  service  he  de 
scribed  under  the  date  of  April  24,  1864. 

"The  President,  loafing  into  my  room,  picked  up 
a  paper  and  read  the  Richmond  Examiner's  recent 
attack  on  Jeff  Davis.  It  amused  him. '  Why,'  said  he, 
'the  Examiner  seems  about  as  fond  of  Jeff  as  the 
[New  York]  World  is  of  me/ 

"  E.  L.  Stanley,  son  of  Lord  Stanley,  has  been  here 
for  a  week.  I  took  him  over  to  Arlington  and  showed 
him  the  African.  He  asked  more  questions  than  I 
ever  dreamed  of  in  similar  circumstances.  He  ap 
plied  a  drastic  suction  to  every  contraband  he  met 
with,  and  came  back  with  brain  and  note-book 
crammed  with  instructive  miscellany.  He  has  been 
exhausting  everybody  in  the  same  way,  till  his  com 
ing  is  dreaded  like  that  of  the  schoolmaster  by  his 
idle  flock.  He  is  a  most  intelligent  gentleman  — 
courteous  and  ready  —  a  contrast  to  most  English 
men  in  his  freedom  from  conceit  and  prejudice.  He 
leaves  town  to-day.  I  gave  him  my  autograph  book; 
we  exchanged  cartes  'like  two  young  shepherds, 
very  friendly  and  pastoral." 

During  the  late  spring  and  early  summer  of  1864 
the  watchers  in  the  White  House  followed  anxiously 
General  Grant's  invasion  of  Virginia.  On  May  9  the 
first  despatches  from  him  came  in,  and  the  President 
was  highly  pleased.  "  It  is  the  dogged  pertinacity 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  211 

of  Grant  that  wins, ' '  said  he.  The  story  was  told  that 
"  Meade  observed  to  Grant  that  the  enemy  seemed 
inclined  to  make  a  Kilkenny  fight  of  the  affair; 
and  Grant  answered,  '  Our  cat  has  the  longest  tail.' ' 

"June  23.  The  President  arrived  to-day  from  the 
front,  sunburnt  and  fagged,  but  still  refreshed  and 
cheered.  He  found  the  army  in  fine  health,  good 
position,  and  good  spirits;  Grant  quietly  confident ; 
he  says,  quoting  the  Richmond  papers,  it  may  be  a 
long  summer's  day  before  he  does  his  work,  but  that 
he  is  as  sure  of  doing  it  as  he  is  of  anything  in  the 
world.  Sheridan  is  now  on  a  raid,  the  purpose  of 
which  is  to  sever  the  connection  at  junction  of  the 
Richmond  and  Danville  Railroads  at  Burk's,  while 
the  army  is  swinging  around  to  the  south  of  Peters 
burg  and  taking  possession  of  the  roads  in  that 
direction." 

Significant  was  Grant's  remark  to  the  President, 
that  "when  McPherson  or  Sherman  or  Sheridan  or 
[James  H.]  Wilson  is  gone  on  any  outside  expedi 
tion,  he  feels  perfectly  secure  about  them,  knowing 
that,  while  they  are  liable  to  any  of  the  ordinary 
mischances  of  war,  there  is  no  danger  of  their  be 
ing  whipped  in  any  but  a  legitimate  way."  Grant 
"seems  to  arrive  at  his  conclusions  without  any  inter 
mediate  reasoning  process  —  giving  his  orders  with 
the  greatest  rapidity  and  with  great  detail.  Uses  the 


212  JOHN  HAY 

theoretical  staff-officers  very  little, "  one  of  his  sub 
ordinates  told  Lincoln. 

Excitement  over  operations  in  the  field  was  hardly 
more  intense  than  over  the  political  campaign.  Lin 
coln  had  been  renominated  by  the  Republicans;  Mc- 
Clellan,  resenting  his  deposition  from  the  command 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  accepted  the  nomina 
tion  of  the  Democrats.  With  fatal  propriety  the  plat 
form  on  which  he  ran  declared  that  the  war  had  been 
a  failure  and  that  overtures  for  peace  ought  to  be 
made  without  delay.  The  issue  was  squarely  posed. 

Lincoln's  friends  saw  dangers  in  every  quarter. 
No  doubt  a  large  minority  in  the  North  was  tired 
of  war:  no  doubt  many  who  had  a  sentimental  re 
gard  for  the  Union  thought  that  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves  had  been  wrongly  given  prominence. 
Every  discontented  officer  —  every  disgruntled  poli 
tician  —  every  merchant  whose  business  was  bad  — 
—  every  civilian  who  dreaded  the  draft  —  the  ambi 
tious  leader  like  Chase  —  the  party  boss  —  the 
army  of  unappeased  office-seekers  —  the  jealous  — 
the  vindictive  —  all  these,  and  everyone  else  with  a 
greed  or  a  grievance,  would  unite  to  defeat  Lincoln. 
Thus,  at  least,  it  appeared  to  his  foreboding  lieu 
tenants. 

Even  Hay,  who  was  no  alarmist,  felt  little  con 
fidence.  "  There  is  a  diseased  restlessness  about  men 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  213 

in  these  times,"  he  wrote  Nicolay  on  August  25, 
1864,  "that  unfits  them  for  the  steady  support  of 
an  administration.  It  seems  as  if  there  were  appear 
ing  in  the  Republican  Party  the  elements  of  disor 
ganization  that  destroyed  the  Whigs.  If  the  dumb 
cattle  are  not  worthy  of  another  term  of  Lincoln, 
then  let  the  will  of  God  be  done,  and  the  murrain  of 
McClellan  fall  on  them." 

Lincoln  himself  never  lost  his  poise.  Whatever  his 
thoughts,  his  comments  were  humorous.  He  was 
charitable  towards  the  disloyal.  But  he  understood 
the  danger:  Democracy  was  at  stake. 

How  subtle  were  the  temptations  presented  to 
him  appears  from  the  following  note  in  Hay's  Diary: 

"September  23,1864.  Senator  Harlan  thinks  that 
Bennett's l  support  is  so  important,  especially  con 
sidered  as  to  its  bearing  on  the  soldier  vote,  that  it 
would  pay  to  offer  him  a  foreign  mission  for  it,  and 
so  told  me.  Forney  has  also  had  a  man  talking  to 
the  cannie  Scot,  who  asked  plumply,  'Will  I  be  a 
welcome  visitor  at  the  White  House  if  I  support  Mr. 
Lincoln?'  What  a  horrible  question  for  a  man  to  be 
able  to  ask!  So  thinks  the  President  apparently.  It 
is  probable  that  Bennett  will  stay  about  as  he  is, 
thoroughly  neutral,  balancing  carefully  until  the 
October  elections,  and  will  then  declare  for  the  side 

1  Senator  James  Harlan;  J.  G.  Bennett,  of  the  New  York  Herald. 


214  JOHN  HAY 

which  he  thinks  will  win.  It  is  better  in  many  respects 
to  let  him  alone. " 

The  October  elections  went  far  to  relieve  anxiety. 
The  President,  with  Hay,  heard  the  returns  at  the 
War  Department.  Early  news  from  Indiana  and 
Ohio  was  cheering,  but  that  from  Pennsylvania  was 
"streaked  with  lean/*  "The  President  in  a  lull  of 
despatches  took  from  his  pocket  the  Nasby  papers, 
and  read  several  chapters  of  the  experiences  of  the 
saint  and  martyr,  Petroleum  V.  They  were  im 
mensely  amusing.  Stanton  and  Dana  1  enjoyed  them 
scarcely  less  than  the  President,  who  read  on,  con 
amore,  until  nine  o'clock."  Reports  from  the  hospi 
tals  and  camps  showed  wide  differences  of  opinion 
among  the  voters.  The  Ohio  troops  voted  about  ten 
to  one  for  Union,  but  "Carver  Hospital,  by  which 
Stanton  and  Lincoln  pass  every  day,  on  their  way 
to  the  country, "  gave  the  heaviest  opposition  vote 
-about  one  out  of  three.  Lincoln  said,  "That's 
hard  on  us,  Stanton,  they  know  us  better  than  the 
others/' 

The  Presidential  election  took  place  on  Novem 
ber  8.  Throughout  the  day,  Hay  reports,  the  White 
House  was  still  and  almost  deserted.  The  President 
said  to  him :  "  It  is  a  little  singular  that  I,  who  am  not 
a  vindictive  man,  should  have  always  been  before 

1  Charles  A.  Dana,  Assistant  Secretary  of  War. 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  215 

the  people  for  election  in  canvasses  marked  for  their 
bitterness :  always  but  once.  When  I  came  to  Con 
gress  it  was  a  quiet  time.  But  always,  besides  that, 
the  contests  in  which  I  have  been  prominent  have 
been  marked  with  great  rancor." 

That  evening  they  spent  at  the  War  Department. 
From  the  first,  the  returns  were  most  encouraging 
and  Lincoln's  good  humor  added  to  the  gayety  of 
the  company.  When  somebody  (Eckert)  came  in 
"very  disreputably  muddy/'  the  Tycoon  was  re 
minded  of  a  story.  "  'For  such  an  awkward  fellow/ 
he  said,  '  I  am  pretty  sure-footed.  It  used  to  take  a 
pretty  dexterous  man  to  throw  me.  I  remember,  the 
evening  of  the  day  in  1858,  that  decided  the  contest 
for  the  Senate  between  Mr.  Douglas  and  myself,  was 
something  like  this,  dark,  rainy,  and  gloomy.  I 
had  been  reading  the  returns  and  had  ascertained 
that  we  had  lost  the  legislature,  and  started  to  go 
home.  The  path  had  been  worn  hog-backed,  and  was 
slippery.  My  foot  slipped  from  under  me,  knocked 
the  other  one  out  of  the  way,  but  I  recovered  my 
self  and  lit  square;  and  I  said  to  myself:  "  It's  a  slip 
and  not  a  fall:"" 

When  Fox,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  said 
that  retribution  had  overtaken  Hale  and  Winter 
Davis,  "two  fellows  that  have  been  specially  malig 
nant  to  us,"  Lincoln  replied:  "'You  have  more  of 


216  JOHN  HAY 

that  feeling  of  personal  resentment  than  I.  Perhaps  I 
may  have  too  little  of  it,  but  I  never  thought  it  paid. 
A  man  has  not  time  to  spend  half  his  life  in  quarrels. 
If  any  man  ceases  to  attack  me,  I  never  remember 
the  past  against  him/ ' 

"Towards  midnight,"  Hay  adds,  in  his  memo 
randum  of  this  historic  occasion,  "we  had  supper. 
The  President  went  awkwardly  and  hospitably  to 
work  shovelling  out  the  fried  oysters.  He  was  most 
agreeable  and  genial  all  the  evening.  .  .  .  Capt. 
Thomas  came  up  with  a  band  about  half -past  two, 
and  made  some  music.  The  President  answered  from 
the  window  with  rather  unusual  dignity  and  effect, 
and  we  came  home." 

At  the  Cabinet  meeting  on  the  nth,  "The  Presi 
dent  took  a  paper  from  out  his  desk,  and  said :  '  Gen 
tlemen,  do  you  remember  last  summer  I  asked  you  all 
to  sign  your  names  to  the  back  of  a  paper,  of  which  I 
did  not  show  you  the  inside?  This  is  it.  Now,  Mr. 
Hay,  see  if  you  can  get  this  open  without  tearing 
it.'  He  had  pasted  it  up  in  so  singular  style  that  it 
required  some  cutting  to  get  it  open.  He  then  read 
as  follows:  — 

" '  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
'"WASHINGTON,  Aug.  23,  1864. 

"  'This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past,  it  seems 
exceedingly  probable  that  this  Administration  will 


THE   GREAT   COMPANION  217 

not  be  re-elected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  so 
co-operate  with  the  President  elect  as  to  save  the 
Union  between  the  election  and  the  inauguration; 
as  he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such  ground 
that  he  cannot  possibly  save  it  afterwards.1 

"'A.  LINCOLN/" 

Lincoln  went  on  to  say,  as  I  have  quoted  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  that  he  had  resolved,  if  McClellan 
were  elected,  to  talk  matters  over  with  him.2 

"The  speeches  of  the  President  at  the  last  two 
serenades  are  very  highly  spoken  of,"  Hay  continues. 
"  The  first  I  wrote  after  the  fact,  to  prevent  the 
'  loyal  Pennsylvanians '  getting  a  swing  at  it  them 
selves.  The  second  one,  last  night,  the  President 
himself  wrote  late  in  the  evening,  and  read  it  from 
the  window.  'Not  very  graceful/  he  said;  'but  I  am 
growing  old  enough  not  to  care  much  for  the  manner 
of  doing  things/' 

On  November  12,  1864,  Hay,  with  a  large  party, 
went  down  to  Grant's  headquarters  at  City  Point. 
They  found  him  occupying  a  little  wall-tent.  "At 
our  first  knock  he  came  to  the  door.  He  looked 
neater  and  more  careful  in  his  dress  than  usual ;  his 

1  This  paper  was  indorsed:  "William  H.  Seward,  W.  P.  Fessen- 
den,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Gideon  Welles,  Edw.  Bates,  M.  Blair,  T. 
P.  Usher." 

2  See  ante,  pp.  133,  134. 


218  JOHN   HAY 

hair  was  combed,  his  coat  on,  and  his  shirt  clean, 
his  long  boots  blackened  till  they  shone."  He  thought 
that  the  Rebels  were  ''about  at  the  end  of  their 
tether;  that  Lee  and  Early  had  received  their  final  re 
inforcements  ";  that  the  negro  troops  are  admirable 
in  many  respects,  but  "that  an  army  of  them  could 
[not]  have  stood  the  week's  pounding  at  the  Wilder 
ness  or  Spottsylvania  as  our  men  did;  'in  fact,  no 
other  troops  in  the  world  could  have  done  it.'"  Grant 
was  "deeply  impressed  with  the  vast  importance 
and  significance  of  the  late  Presidential  election." 
The  orderliness  of  it  "proves  our  worthiness  of  free 
institutions,  and  our  capability  of  preserving  them 
without  running  into  anarchy  or  despotism." 
^During  the  ensuing  months  we  have  only  sparse 
records  of  Hay's  life.  In  March,  Secretary  Seward, 
without  solicitation  and  to  his  surprise,  appointed 
him  Secretary  of  Legation  at  Paris.  "  It  is  a  pleasant 
and  honorable  way  of  leaving  my  present  post,  which 
I  should  have  left  in  any  event  very  soon,"  he  writes 
his  brother  Charles.'  "I  am  thoroughly  sick  of  cer 
tain  aspects  of  life  here,  which  you  will  understand 
without  my  putting  them  on  paper,  and  I  was  almost 
ready,  after  taking  a  few  months'  active  service  in 
the  field,  to  go  back  to  Warsaw  and  try  to  give  the 
Vineyard  experiment  a  fair  trial.  .  .  .  The  President 
requested  me  to  stay  with  him  a  month  or  so  longer 


THE  GREAT  COMPANION  219 

to  get  him  started  with  the  reorganized  office,  which 
I  shall  do,  and  shall  sail  probably  in  June.  ...  I 
very  much  fear  that  all  my  friends  will  disapprove 
this  step  of  mine,  but  if  they  knew  all  that  in 
duced  me  to  it  they  would  coincide."  (March  31, 
1865.) 

A  fortnight  after  Hay  sent  this  letter,  his  life  at 
the  White  House  and  his  association  with  the  Great 
Companion  came  to  a  tragic  end. 

On  Good  Friday,  April  14,  1865,  President  and 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  Miss  Harris  and 
Major  Henry  R.  Rathbone,  went  to  Ford's  Theatre 
to  see  Our  American  Cousin.  At  about  ten  o'clock 
John  Wilkes  Booth  crept  to  the  door  of  their  box, 
opened  it,  leveled  a  pistol  at  the  back  of  the  Pre 
sident's  head,  and  fired  point-blank.  Mr.  Lincoln 
never  spoke  again.  They  carried  him  unconscious  to 
the  house  across  the  street  —  No.  453  Tenth  Street 
—  and  laid  him  on  a  "bed  in  a  small  room  at  the 
rear  of  the  hall,  on  the  ground  floor." 

In  a  few  moments  Washington  was  alarmed, 
stunned.  "  A  crowd  of  people  rushed  instinctively  to 
the  White  House  and,  bursting  through  the  doors, 
shouted  the  dreadful  news  to  Robert  Lincoln  and 
Major  Hay,  who  sat  gossiping  in  an  upper  room.  .  .  . 
They  ran  downstairs.  Finding  a  carriage  at  the 
door,  they  entered  it  and  drove  to  Tenth  Street." 


220  JOHN  HAY 

Before  they  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  house  they 
were  prepared  for  the  worst. 

Hay  watched  near  the  head  of  the  President's  bed 
throughout  the  night.  Gradually  the  slow  and  regu 
lar  breathing  grew  fainter,  and  the  "  automatic  moan 
ing  "  ceased.  "A  look  of  unspeakable  peace  came 
upon  his  worn  features.  At  twenty-two  minutes  after 
seven  he  died.  Stan  ton  broke  the  silence  by  saying, 
'Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages/"  1 
1  N.  &  H.,  x,  292. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS 

HAY  was  twenty-seven  years  old  when  the  Civil 
War  ended,  bequeathing  to  him"  the  memory 
of  an  astonishing  experience  which  had  called  into 
play  all  his  talents  except  the  literary.  In  knowledge 
of  the  world,  in  acquaintance  with  men,  in  trial  by 
the  most  daunting  modern  forms  of  ordeal,  he  had 
little  to  learn.  He  had  kept  his  head  and  his  temper, 
and  his  capacity  to  take  adverse  fate  ironically,  al 
most  blithely.  But  except  to  the  professional  soldier, 
war  offers  no  permanent  career;  and  the  war,  which 
ripened  Hay,  left  him  with  his  fortune  still  unmade. 

To  have  been  Lincoln's  private  secretary  during 
four  years  was  privilege  enough  for  one  lifetime,  but 
the  recollection  of  it  would  neither  feed  nor  clothe 
him;  and  Hay,  with  a  constitutional  inability  to 
make  money,  found  himself  almost  as  poor  when  he 
quitted  Washington  in  1865  as  when  he  went  there 
with  Lincoln  in  1861.  A  few  parcels  of  unprofitable 
land  in  Florida  and  an  undeveloped  vineyard  in  War 
saw  represented  the  savings  from  his  meager  salary. 
Gladly,  therefore,  he  accepted  the  post  of  Secretary 
of  Legation  at  Paris,  which  promised  him  an  imme- 


222  JOHN  HAY 

diate  living  wage  and  a  much  needed  change  of 
scene.  Perhaps  it  might  lead  to  something  better. 

Having  visited  his  home,  he  reached  Paris  early 
in  the  summer.  Nicolay  went  also,  to  serve  as  Ameri 
can  Consul  there.  "Mr.  Nicolay  is  an  intelligent, 
honorable  man,  with  a  bilious  temperament,"  wrote 
Thurlow  Weed,  the  Republican  boss  of  New  York 
State,  to  John  Bigelow,  who  was  in  charge  of  the 
American  Legation.  "  I  think  you  will  like  him.  Hay 
is  a  bright,  gifted  young  man,  with  agreeable  man 
ners  and  refined  tastes.  I  don't  believe  he  has  been 
spoiled,  though  he  has  been  much  exposed.  If  he 
remains  the  modest  young  man  he  was,  I  am  sure 
you  will  like  him/'  That  was  the  time  when  tem 
peraments  were  classified  as  bilious,  sanguine,  nerv 
ous,  or  phlegmatic,  and  Weed  would  doubtless  have 
defined  Hay  as  sanguine. 

John  Bigelow,  the  American  Minister,  had  served 
during  nearly  Lincoln's  entire  administration,  and 
upon  him  had  fallen  the  task  of  preventing  the  Em 
peror  Napoleon  III  from  openly  supporting  the  cause 
of  the  Confederate  States.  Next  to  Charles  Francis 
Adams  in  London,  whose  work  in  helping  to  preserve 
the  Union  can  never  be  overestimated,  Bigelow  was 
the  most  valiant  defender  abroad  of  the  American 
Republic.  A  vigorous  writer,  a  scholar,  a  man  of  the 
world  whose  courtliness  suggested  the  traditions  of 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT -- PARIS      223 

the  Saint-Germain  Quarter,  he  combined  also  in 
rare  measure  dignity  and  democratic  downrightness. 

Hay  reached  his  post  in  June,  1865.  For  Mr. 
Bigelow  he  soon  felt  an  affectionate  admiration, 
which  never  slackened  through  life,  while  Mrs.  Bige- 
low's  inexhaustible  vivacity  now  amused  and  now 
fascinated  him.  "  Mon  Dieu!  qu'elle  est  vive,  qu'elle 
est  vive!"  he  records  in  his  Diary,  quoting  "Old 
Plon,"  whom  I  take  to  be  Prince  Napoleon  —  "  Plon- 
Plon." 

The  conclusion  of  the  American  Civil  War  left 
France  and  the  United  States  face  to  face  over  an 
international  question  of  grave  menace.  The  French 
Emperor,  taking  advantage  of  the  American  up 
heaval,  had  sent  an  army  to  Mexico,  conquered  a 
part  of  that  discord-ridden  country,  established  an 
empire  there  under  French  protection  and  given  the 
imperial  crown  to  Archduke  Maximilian,  brother  of 
the  Austrian  Emperor,  Francis  Joseph.  Napoleon's 
purpose  could  not  be  misunderstood.  He  intended, 
if  the  American  Republic  were  split  into  two  separate 
and  mutually  hostile  nations,  that  French  influence 
should  not  stop  at  the  Rio  Grande. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Government  at  Wash 
ington  after  the  Union  had  been  saved,  was  to  serve 
notice  on  the  French  Emperor  that  he  must  with 
draw  his  army  from  Mexico ;  and  while  the  American 


224  JOHN   HAY 

troops  were  massed  in  great  numbers  on  the  Mexican 
frontier  to  give  point  to  this  notice,  it  fell  to  Mr. 
Bigelow  at  Paris  to  carry  on  the  diplomatic  nego 
tiations  between  the  two  governments.  The  Mexican 
difficulty  was,  indeed,  the  chief  official  business  at 
the  American  Legation  during  John  Hay's  stay  in 
Paris;  but  although  he  watched  it  intently  from  the 
inside,  we  cannot  suppose  that  he  shaped  the  course 
of  events.  After  discharging  his  duties  as  secre 
tary,  he  chiefly  occupied  himself  with  social  life.  His 
happy  gift  of  riveting  acquaintances,  his  quick  inter 
est  in  all  sorts  of  persons  and  things,  and  his  deter 
mination  to  make  himself  proficient  in  that  Book  of 
Paris  which  has  fascinated  the  world  since  the  days  of 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  secured  to  him  constant  en 
tertainment.  He  perfected  himself  in  speaking 
French;  he  visited  the  art  galleries,  the  theaters,  the 
opera;  and  he  found  time  to  write  poetry. 

From  1865  to  1868  the  Paris  of  the  Second  Empire 
stood  at  its  zenith,  surpassing  in  fashion  and  luxury 
its  own  earlier  brilliant  days.  To  observers  who 
looked  below  the  surface  it  seemed  milliner-made, 
and  even  the  soldiers,  who  were  always  on  parade 
and  lent  color  to  every  function,  seemed  soldiers  in 
uniform  only.  But  Napoleon  III,  the  center  from 
which  all  splendors  radiated,  was  still  the  acknowl 
edged  arbiter  of  Europe,  although  there  were  al- 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      225 

ready  doubters  who  whispered  that  he  too  would 
collapse  at  the  first  shock  with  reality.  He  had  lost 
prestige  in  Syria  and  in  Italy,  and  now  the  United 
States  blocked  his  ambitions  in  Mexico.  Jesuit-led 
Clericals  claimed  greater  and  greater  privileges  from 
him,  while  the  mutterings  of  Republicans  from  their 
hiding-places  penetrated  even  to  his  study  in  the 
Tuileries.  Never  a  keen  reader  of  character,  he  set 
down  Bismarck,  who  visited  him  at  Biarritz,  as  "a 
not-serious  man*'  —  Bismarck  the  terrible,  in  whose 
brain  was  already  matured  the  plan  to  Prussianize 
Germany  and  to  fix  German  despotism  upon  Europe, 
after  having  bled  France  —  and  any  others  who  op 
posed  him  —  white. 

Hay,  fresh  from  the  four  years'  struggle  which  had 
determined  that  Democracy  should  not  perish  from 
the  earth  in  America,  fostered  the  dream,  dear  to 
many  persons  at  the  time,  that  a  Golden  Age  of  Free 
dom  was  about  to  dawn.  Even  in  England  men  pre 
dicted  that  the  Republic  would  come  after  Queen 
Victoria's  death,  if  not  before;  and  that  on  the  Conti 
nent,  as  soon  as  the  French  autocrat  could  be  curbed, 
the  unification  of  Italy  would  be  completed  and  that 
of  Germany  achieved.  Then  the  peoples  of  Europe, 
united  at  last  according  to  the  principle  of  national 
ity,  would  be  peace-loving  and  peace-keeping,  lib 
eral  in  their  political  methods,  and  bound  together 


226  JOHN  HAY 

by  a  sense  of  mutual  interdependence  and  of  com 
mon  ideals. 

Towards  Napoleon  III,  the  despot  who  prevented 
the  immediate  realization  of  this  dream,  Hay  felt 
aversion  mingled  with  scorn,  for  he  half  suspected 
that  the  Emperor  was  more  than  half  a  charlatan. 

Being  not  only  a  diplomat  but  a  discreet  diplo 
mat,  he  kept  his  opinions  to  himself.  In  private, 
however,  he  gave  vent  to  them  in  poems  which  he 
did  not  publish  until  after  his  return  from  France. 
These  poems  are  interesting,  not  only  because  they 
have  their  place  in  Hay's  literary  development,  but 
also  because  they  show  us  his  innermost  convictions 
at  this  time. 

The  first,  "Sunrise  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde," 
he  wrote  in  August,  1865,  shortly  after  his  arrival 
in  Paris,  and  whilst  the  views  or  prepossessions  con 
cerning  Napoleon  III  which  he  had  brought  with 
him  from  America  were  still  fresh.  It  opens  with  a 
description  apparently  slight  and  yet  vivid. 

I  stand  at  the  break  of  day 

In  the  Champs  Elysees. 

The  tremulous  shafts  of  dawning 

As  they  shoot  o'er  the  Tuileries  early, 

Strike  Luxor's  cold  gray  spire, 

And  wild  in  the  light  of  the  morning 

With  their  marble  manes  on  fire 

Ramp  the  white  Horses  of  Marly. 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      227 

But  the  Place  of  Concord  lies 

Dead  hushed  'neath  the  ashy  skies. 

And  the  Cities  sit  in  council 

With  sleep  in  their  wide  stone  eyes. 

I  see  the  mystic  plain 

Where  the  army  of  spectres  slain 

In  the  Emperor's  life-long  war 

March  on  with  unsounding  tread 

To  trumpets  whose  voice  is  dead. 

Their  spectral  chief  still  leads  them,  — 

The  ghostly  flash  of  his  sword 

Like  a  comet  through  mist  shines  far,  — 

And  the  noiseless  host  is  poured, 

For  the  gendarme  never  heeds  them, 

Up  the  long  dim  road  where  thundered 

The  army  of  Italy  onward 

Through  the  great  pale  Arch  of  the  Star! 

And  then  the  poet  goes  on  to  describe  earlier  scenes 
which  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  witnessed. 

There  is  one  that  seems  a  King, 

As  if  the  ghost  of  a  Crown 

Still  shadowed  his  jail-bleached  hair; 

I  can  hear  the  guillotine  ring, 

As  its  regicide  note  rang  there, 

When  he  laid  his  tired  life  down 

And  grew  brave  in  his  last  despair. 

Other   figures   rise  in   his   imagination:     Madame 
Dubarry  — 

Who  weeps  at  leaving  a  world 
Of  love  and  revel  and  sin.  ... 
For  life  was  wicked  and  sweet 
With  kings  at  her  small  white  feet! 


228  JOHN  HAY 

and  Marie  Antoinette,  "every  inch  a  Queen,"  — 

Whose  blood  baptized  the  place, 
In  the  days  of  madness  and  fear,  — 
Her  shade  has  never  a  peer 
In  majesty  and  grace. 

And  so  on  to  the  glorious  promise  of  1848:  — 

As  Freedom  with  eyes  aglow 

Smiled  glad  through  her  childbirth  pain, 

How  was  the  mother  to  know 

That  her  woe  and  travail  were  vain? 

A  smirking  servant  smiled 

When  she  gave  him  her  child  to  keep; 

Did  she  know  he  would  strangle  the  child 

As  it  lay  in  his  arms  asleep? 

The  treasure  of  'Forty-Eight 
A  lurking  jail-bird  stole, 
She  can  but  watch  and  wait 
As  the  swift  sure  seasons  roll. 

And  when  in  God's  good  hour 
Comes  the  time  of  the  brave  and  true, 
Freedom  again  shall  rise 
With  a  blaze  in  her  awful  eyes 
That  shall  wither  this  robber-power 
As  the  sun  now  dries  the  dew. 

In  another  poem,  "The  Sphinx  of  the  Tuileries," 
Hay  speaks  even  more  scornfully  — 

Of  the  Charlatan  whom  the  Frenchmen  loathe 
And  the  Cockneys  all  admire. 


THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS     229 

Afraid  to  fight  and  afraid  to  fly, 

He  cowers  in  an  abject  shiver; 
The  people  will  come  to  their  own  at  last,  — 

God  is  not  mocked  forever. 

These  and  similar  indictments  of  the  Third  Na 
poleon  the  young  diplomat  confided,  temporarily, 
to  his  portfolio.  By  inheritance  and  choice  he  loathed 
despotism;  and  when  he  found  it  personified  in  a 
man  whose  resource  was  craft  and  not  strength,  his 
loathing  was  doubled.  He  believed  so  heartily  that 
Democracy  could  cure  political  evils  of  every  degree 
of  malignity,  that  he  underestimated  the  advantage 
which  the  element  of  readiness  gave  to  the  partisans 
of  Reaction,  solidaire,  and  propped  by  their  stand 
ing  armies  and  their  churches. 

Whatever  the  Poet's  convictions,  however,  the 
Secretary  of  Legation  seemed  not  to  know  of  them. 
He  mixed  with  Imperialists  as  smoothly  as  with  every 
one  else,  and  although  he  may  have  abhorred  their 
principles,  he  found  his  instinct  for  refinement  enjoy 
ing  the  elegance  of  the  Imperial  Court.  "One  tor 
ment  of  diplomatic  life,"  he  writes,  "is  that  you  never 
know  the  names  of  these  agreeable  fellows,"  —  the 
imperial  Chamberlains.  "They  lose  all  identity  in 
their  violet  coats  and  Imperial  moustaches.  You  do 
not  hear  their  names  when  you  are  presented  to 
them,  and  if  you  look  upon  the  official  list  of  the 


230  JOHN  HAY 

officers  of  the  Emperor's  household  you  only  find 
that  you  may  take  your  choice  of  a  dozen  names 
for  the  man  you  are  looking  after/' 

Among  Hay's  notes  is  a  report  of  a  conversation  he 
had  on  September  25,  1866,  with  the  Reverend  Dr. 
Smith,  Professor  of  Dogmatic  Theology  in  Propa 
ganda  Fide  College  at  Rome.  That  was  the  interval 
when  the  Pope's  Temporal  Power  was  being  bol 
stered  up,  somewhat  unsteadily,  by  a  French  garri 
son.  "  I  got  one  idea,"  Hay  says,  "which  was  definite 
enough,  to  wit,  the  absolute  uncertainty  in  which 
the  Roman  politicians  are  as  to  the  future.  The 
Professor  declared  that  "the  Pope  is  really  not  fixed 
in  any  plan.  It  seems  now  certain  that  the  French 
will  withdraw  in  December.  Then,  what  will  happen, 
remains  to  be  seen.  If  the  enemies  of  the  Temporal 
Power  are  willing  to  allow  him  to  exercise  the  sov 
ereignty  over  the  little  patch  of  earth  around  the 
Eternal  City,  he  can  still  retain  his  position  and 
prestige  in  the  Catholic  World.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
he  is  made  the  object  of  violent  attack  from  without, 
he  will  retire  from  Rome." 

The  Professor  admitted  that  there  were  many 
revolutionists  in  the  city,  but  he  added  that  both 
they,  and  the  Pope's  friends,  were  "too  weak,  too 
destitute  of  enterprise  to  accomplish  anything.  .  .  . 
The  only  thing  to  be  feared  is  the  flood  swelling  in 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT-- PARIS     231 

from  Italy  and  submerging  Rome.  But,  I  asked,  is 
it  considered  impossible,  among  reasonable  men 
around  the  Pope,  to  treat  with  the  King  of  Italy  and 
to  obtain  from  him  the  protection  he  would  doubt 
less  gladly  accord?  The  Doctor  shook  his  head  and 
said  slowly,  '  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  done.  There 
are  some  compromises  which  would  destroy  the  very 
essence  of  the  principle  in  question.  These  cannot 
be  made.  Such  compromises  are  different  from 
merely  accepting  the  logic  of  events/ ' 

The  Doctor  further  related  that  several  years  be 
fore,  when  the  Curia  was  much  perturbed,  Pius  IX 
said  to  Lord  Odo  Russell,  the  English  Envoy:  "l  I 
suppose,  if  I  am  driven  out  of  Rome,  you  will  let 
me  come  to  Malta,  would  you  not?"  Lord  Odo 
consulted  the  British  Foreign  Secretary,1  his  uncle, 
who  "  immediately  answered  that  whenever  his 
Holiness  desired  it  an  English  man-of-war  would  be 
at  his  service  at  Civita  Vecchia  to  take  him  to  Malta. 
This  despatch  still  exists,  and  Dr.  Smith  says  it  is 
the  only  document  that  has  passed  between  the  two 
governments  on  the  subject/' 

That  the  Catholic  Pope  should  turn  in  private 
for  protection  to  the  Protestant  power  which  he  re 
viled  in  public,  is  among  the  humors  of  that  decade  of 
insincerities. 

1  Lord  John  Russell. 


232  JOHN  HAY 

When  Hay  referred  to  the  hope  of  the  Catholics 
in  America  to  see  the  Pope  among  them,  the  Doctor 
said  ''the  matter  had  sometimes  been  thought  of, 
but  that  it  seemed  impracticable ;  as  the  Pope  should 
occupy  a  more  central  position  in  reference  to  Chris 
tendom." 

"The  Emperor  never  was  the  meekest  of  men," 
Hay  records  in  another  place,  "but  his  temper  is 
sour  this  autumn  [1866]  as  the  disappointed  vintage 
of  Burgundy  .  .  .  just  before  going  to  Biarritz.  .  .  . 
[he]  went  to  see  the  Palais  de  T Exposition.  He  seemed 
to  be  very  bilious.  On  coming  in  sight  of  the  Champ 
de  Mars,  he  said:  'Call  that  a  palace!  Looks  like 
a  gasometer  I'  When  he  came  to  the  high,  closed 
fence,  surrounding  the  park,  he  says:  'What  does 
this  mean?  Tear  it  down!  The  people  have  a  right 
to  see  the  building/  They  explained,  and  he  com 
promised  by  tearing  holes  in  the  fence  at  intervals. 
On  each  side  of  the  North  entrance  were  neat  brick 
structures  for  the  officers  of  the  Exposition.  Here  his 
bile  boiled  over.  '  Otez  moi  $a!  What  the  Devil  do 
you  spoil  the  view  so  for?  Tear  them  down!'  And 
this  week  you  see  workmen  demolishing  with  pick 
and  shovel  what  they  built  laboriously  last  week 
with  chisel  and  trowel." 

In  contrast  to  this  glimpse  of  Napoleon  in  peevish 
mood,  is  Hay's  description  of  an  Imperial  reception 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT- -  PARIS     233 

at  the  Tuileries.  In  November,  1866,  Mr.  Bigelow 
was  succeeded  as  Minister  by  General  John  A.  Dix^ 
—  former  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who,  when 
Secession  became  active,  telegraphed  to  New  Orleans, 
11  If  any  one  attempts  to  haul  down  the  American 
flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot."  Soon  after  his  arrival 
in  Paris,  Marquis  de  Moustier,  the  Imperial  Grand 
Master  of  Ceremonies,  informed  him  that  the  Em 
peror  would  receive  him  on  Sunday,  December  23, 
at  two  o'clock. 

"I  hired  a  carriage  and  two  servants,  in  the  Rue 
Boissy  d'Anglas,  for  Hoffman1  and  myself,"  writes 
Hay.  "It  was  a  highly  respectable  looking  affair, 
not  fresh  enough  to  look  hired,  with  a  couple  of 
solemn  flunkies  that  seemed  to  have  been  in  the 
family  for  at  least  a  generation.  We  went  to  the 
General's  [Dix]  and  in  a  few  moments  came  in  the 
Baron  de  Lajus.  He  said  he  was  very  much  crowded 
to-day  with  besogne,  that  he  had  five  Ministers  to 
bring  to  the  Palace,  and  that  therefore  we  would 
please  excuse  his  hurry.  Upon  which  we  all  rose 
and  went  to  the  door,  where  we  found  a  court  car 
riage,  the  Imperial  arms  blazing  on  the  panels  and 
the  harness,  drawn  by  four  horses  and  accompanied 
by  two  mounted  outriders.  Everything  covered  with 
tawdry,  tarnished  gold  lace.  It  seemed  like  the 
1  Under  secretary  at  the  Legation. 


234  JOHN  HAY 

Triumphal  Car  in  a  flourishing  circus.  Into  this 
vehicle  mounted  the  General  and  the  Chamberlain, 
Hoffman  and  I  following  in  our  sham-private  remise; 
and  we  had  all  the  honors  of  a  stare  from  the  badauds 
on  the  asphalt  of  the  Champs  Elysees  as  the  party 
lumbered  down  to  the  Tuileries.  We  were  all  in  our 
Army  uniform. 

"Arrived  there,  we  were  shown  to  a  warm,  cheery 
ante- room,  with  a  superb  wood  fire  and  a  fine  view 
of  the  Tuileries  gardens,  the  Avenue  and  the  Arch 
of  Triumph."  "We  waited  some  time,  while  other 
dignitaries  gathered  —  the  Colombian  Minister; 
Fane,  the  British  Minister  ad  interim;  the  long, 
gaunt  Bavarian,  Perger  de  Paglas  and  his  secretary, 
who  seemed  moved  by  rusty  springs " ;  a  "thin,  wiry, 
blue-blooded  Brazilian;  a  Peruvian;  and  some  more/' 
Then  some  of  the  "violet  people"  moved  the  party 
into  a  larger  saloon.  They  "were  presented  to  the 
Due  de  Cambaceres,  a  jaunty  old  gentleman,  lean 
and  shaven  and  wigged  —  long  also.  He  bowed  lav 
ishly  and  seemed  distressed  that  nobody  would  sit 
down."  Then  Mr.  Bigelow  was  called  for,  and  "he 
entered  the  next  room  where  the  blaze  of  the  Im 
perial  Presence  dazzled  us  through  the  opening  door. 
His  audience  of  leave  was  soon  over. 

"Gen'l  Dix,  followed  by  me  and  Hoffman,  was 
then  ushered  into  The  Presence.  The  General 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      235 

looked  anxiously  around  for  the  Emperor,  advancing 
undecidedly,  until  a  little  man,  who  was  standing 
in  front  of  the  Throne,  stepped  forward  to  meet 
him.  Everybody  bowed  profoundly  as  the  Due 
de  Cambaceres  gave  the  name  and  the  title  of  the 
General.  The  little  man  bowed,  and  the  General, 
beginning  to  recognize  in  him  a  dim  likeness  to  the 
Emperor's  portrait,  made  his  speech  to  him." 

Here  follows  a  characteristic  digression.  "  I  looked 
around  the  room  for  a  moment,"  Hay  continues, 
11  admiring  as  I  always  do  on  ceremonial  occasions  in 
France  the  rich  and  tasteful  masses  of  color  which 
the  various  groups  of  Great  Officers  of  the  Crown 
so  artistically  present.  Not  a  man's  place  is  left  to 
accident.  A  cardinal  dashes  in  a  great  splash  of 
scarlet.  A  cent-garde  supplies  an  exquisite  blue  and 
gold.  The  yellow  and  the  greens  are  furnished  by  the 
representatives  of  Law  and  Legislation,  and  the  Mas 
ters  of  Ceremonies  fill  up  with  an  unobtrusive  violet. 
Yet  these  rich  lights  and  soft  shadows  are  accessory 
to  the  central  point  of  the  picture  —  the  little  man 
who  is  listening  or  seeming  to  listen  to  the  General's 
address.  If  our  Republican  eyes  can  stand  such  a 
dazzling  show,  let  us  look  at  him. 

"Short  and  stocky,  he  moves  with  a  queer,  side 
long  gait,  like  a  gouty  crab ;  a  man  so  wooden  looking 
that  you  would  expect  his  voice  to  come  rasping  out 


236  JOHN   HAY 

like  a  watchman's  rattle.  A  complexion  like  crude 
tallow  —  marked  for  Death,  whenever  Death  wants 
him  —  to  be  taken  sometime  in  half  an  hour,  or  left, 
neglected  by  the  Skeleton  King  for  years,  perhaps, 
if  properly  coddled.  The  moustache  and  imperial 
which  the  world  knows,  but  ragged  and  bristly,  con 
cealing  the  mouth  entirely,  is  moving  a  little  nerv 
ously  as  the  lips  twitch.  Eyes  sleepily  watchful  — 
furtive  —  stealthy,  rather  ignoble ;  like  servants 
looking  out  of  dirty  windows  and  saying  i  nobody  at 
home,'  and  lying  as  they  say  it.  And  withal  a  won 
derful  phlegm.  He  stands  there  as  still  and  impas 
sive  as  if  carved  in  oak  for  a  ship's  figurehead.  He 
looks  not  unlike  one  of  those  rude  inartistic  statues. 
His  legs  are  too  short  —  his  body  too  long.  He  never 
looks  well  but  on  a  throne  or  on  a  horse,  as  kings 
ought." 

In  all  his  writing,  Hay  never  did  better  than  that. 
As  a  historical  portrait  in  the  gallery  of  nineteenth- 
century  celebrities,  it  will  take  its  place.  If  it  seems 
malign,  its  malignity  may  be  compared  with  the  acid 
which  bites  in  the  etching. 

Hay  goes  on  to  tell  how  General  Dix,  raising  his 
voice  and  grown  a  little  oratorical,  closes  his  speech 
and  hands  the  Emperor  his  sealed  letter  of  credence. 
The  Emperor  gives  it  to  the  Due  de  Bassano,  who 
stands  at  his  right.  The  Emperor's  "face  breaks  up 


DESCRIPTION   OF   NAPOLEON    III    IN   JOHN   HAY'S    DIARY 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      237 

with  ungainly  movements  of  the  moustache  and  the 
eyelids.  You  can  imagine  it  a  sort  of  wooden  clock 
preparing  to  strike.  When  he  speaks  you  are  sure 
of  your  theory.  His  voice  is  wooden;  it  is  not  so 
strong  and  full  as  a  year  ago.  He  speaks  rather 
rapidly  and  not  distinctly.  He  slurs  half  his  words, 
as  rapid  writers  do  half  their  letters.  He  makes  his 
set  speech,  which,  with  the  General's,  will  appear  to 
morrow  in  the  Moniteur,  and  then  comes  sidling  up 
and  says  (smilingly,  he  evidently  thinks,  but  the 
machinery  of  smiles  at  the  corners  of  his  mouth  is 
apparently  out  of  repair), '  You  expect  many  of  your 
countrymen  in  Paris  this  year?  ' 

"'A  great  many,  doubtless/ 

'"There  will  be  a  regiment  of  your  milice?1 

'"There  has  been  some  talk  of  it,  etc.,  etc.,  but 
your  Majesty  will  not  expect  them  to  compare  with 
your  veterans/ 

" '  But  you  have  shown  that  it  does  not  take  long 
to  make  good  troops.' ' 

After  further  gracious  trivialities,  Hay  and  Hoff 
man  were  presented  to  the  Emperor,  who,  "  clearly 
wishing  to  be  very  civil,  as  it  is  most  rare  that  a 
monarch  addresses  a  Secretary  of  Legation,  said, 
'But  you  are  very  young  to  be  Col-o-nel.  Did  you 
make  the  war  in  America?' 

"  I  wanted  to  insist  that  older  and  wickeder  men 


238  JOHN  HAY 

than  I  were  responsible  for  that  crime,  but  I  thought 
best  to  answer  the  intention  rather  than  the  gram 
mar,  and  said  I  had  had  an  humble  part  in  the  war. 

11 1  Infanterie  or  cavalerie? ' 

"'The  general  staff!1 

"'And  you?'  he  said,  turning  to  Hoffman,  and 
received  the  same  answer.  We  bowed  and  backed 
out  of  the  Presence." 

Upon  leaving  the  Emperor,  the  party  was  taken 
to  the  Empress  Eugenie. 

"She  was  charmingly  dressed  in  a  lilac  walking 
dress  with  an  almost  invisible  bonnet,"  says  the  ob 
servant  Hay.  "She  had  doubtless  been  to  church 
like  a  good,  pious  lady,  as  she  is,  and  received  after 
wards  in  her  promenade  costume.  Time  has  dealt 
very  gently  with  her.  [Eugenie  was  born  May  5, 
1826.]  She  is  still  full  of  those  sweet,  winning  fascina 
tions  that  won  her  a  crown.  There  are  few  partisans 
so  bitter  as  not  to  be  moved  by  her  exquisite  man 
ner.  Even  the  little  stories  at  which  men  smile,  her 
subjection  to  priests,  her  hanging  up  over  old  Ba- 
ciocchi's  deathbed  the  holy  rag  from  the  baby  linen 
of  John  Baptist,  which  extorted  from  the  tormented 
old  sinner  his  last  grim  smile,  her  vestal  lamp  in  the 
Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Victories,  and  all  that  mum 
mery  is  not  unfeminine,  and  people  do  not  care  to 
be  bitter  about  it. 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      239 

"To  the  General  she  was  charming.  She  talked 
about  the  President  [Johnson]  and  his  trip  to 
Chicago  (which  the  General  explained  was  purely 
a  personal  visit  of  friendship  to  the  tomb  of  a 
friend!  !  !).  When  we  were  presented,  she  made  the 
identical  remark  made  by  the  Emperor,  'You  are 
young  to  be  Colonel? '  People  after  a  dozen  years  of 
intercourse  get  the  same  ideas  and  ways  of  looking 
at  things.  She  asked  if  the  grade  of  Colonel  was  the 
same  in  our  army  as  in  the  French.  She  spoke  Eng 
lish  with  a  charming  Castilian  accent,  which  is  in 
finitely  prettier  than  the  French.  She  is  so  winning 
and  so  lovely  that  one  feels  a  little  guilty  in  not  be 
ing  able  in  conscience  to  wish  her  eternal  power  for 
herself,  her  heirs  and  assigns. 

"So  we  left  the  gracious  blonde  Spaniard  and 
passed  down  through  the  avenue  of  flunkies  to  the 
door  where  our  own  sham  flunkies  received  us  and 
drove  us  to  the  Rue  de  Presbourg.  The  ceremony 
is  concluded  by  giving  to  the  Chief  Piqueur  a  present 
of  250  francs." 

With  the  resignation  of  John  Bigelow  and  the 
coming  of  General  Dix,  Hay's  term  as  Secretary  of 
Legation  expired.  The  new  Minister  wished  to  have 
his  own  subordinates;  and,  according  to  the  hap 
hazard  diplomatic  practice  of  the  American  Govern 
ment,  even  the  most  important  posts,  instead  of  being 


240  JOHN  HAY 

guarded  by  permanent  officials  who  knew  the  bus 
iness  traditions  and  ceremonial,  were  from  time  to 
time  swept  clean  of  experts  and  handed  over  to  a 
new  batch  of  novices. 

As  this  was  the  well-understood  procedure,  Hay 
did  not  complain.  "  I  am  going  home,  as  the  papers 
have  stated,  in  a  strange  paroxysm  of  truthfulness," 
he  wrote  to  his  friend  Albert  Rhodes  in  December, 
1866.  "  I  leave  the  service  of  the  ungrateful  Republic 
in  a  week  or  two  more. 

Vain  pomps  and  glories  of  this  world  I  hate  ye.   (Shakes.) 

I  shall  try  to  find  a  place  behind  some  respectable 
counter.  I  do  not  care  what  I  sell  —  candles  or 
stocks  —  so  that  profits  shall  accrue.  I  shall  pull  off 
my  coat  and  roll  up  my  sleeves,  but  I  don't  believe 
Jordan  will  be  so  hard  a  road  to  travel  as  it  is  cracked 
up  to  be.  ...  I  am  falling  into  the  sere,  the  yellow 
leaf." 

Before  Hay  quitted  Paris,  he  had  a  final  view  of  the 
Emperor,  at  the  Diplomatic  Reception  on  January 
I,  1867.  Ever  since  the  New  Year's  Day  eight  years 
before,  when  Napoleon's  remark  to  the  Austrian 
Ambassador  was  construed  as  a  hint  of  impending 
war,  that  annual  occasion  had  caused  some  trepida 
tion  to  European  politicians.  Hay's  description  of 
one  of  the  last  of  these  ceremonies,  sketched  with 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  --  PARIS     241 

his  characteristic  vividness,  has  more  than  fleeting 
interest. 

"Instead  of  admitting  the  Diplomats  by  a  door 
nearest  the  Salle  du  Trone,"  he  writes,  "they  al 
ways  manage  to  drag  them  through  a  long  series 
of  salons  crowded  with  footmen  of  portentous  calf 
development  and  Chamberlains  in  purple;  to  strike 
the  imaginations  of  outside  barbarians.  We  were 
pressed  on  as  usual  through  these  blazing  hedges  of 
tinsel  to  the  Reception  Room.  A  good  deal  of  inter 
est  was  taken  in  the  General  Dix,  who  was  one  of 
the  newest  arrivals,  and  whose  venerable  and  gentle 
manlike  appearance  produced  a  most  favorable  im 
pression.  At  the  order  of  the  bustling  Chamberlains 
we  took  our  places,  the  United  States  by  a  queer 
chance  finding  itself  between  the  two  American  Em 
pires,  Mexico  and  Brazil,  Almonte  having  been 
presented  just  before  and  the  Brazilian  just  after 
Gen'l  Dix.  The  Brazilian  Minister  presented  Dix  to 
Almonte,  the  General  thinking  that  much  could  be 
sacrificed  to  courtesy,  and  they  began  to  recall  an 
old  Washington  acquaintance,  when  the  door  opened 
and  the  usher  shouted  '  L'Empereur.'  Every  one 
bowed  with  various  degrees  of  abject  servility. 

1  The  Emperor  came  woodenly  in.  He  was  dressed 
in  his  usual  uniform  of  General  of  Division.  The 
Prince  Imperial,  a  nice,  slender  child,  with  pleasant, 


242  JOHN  HAY 

sad  eyes  like  his  mother,  came  in  with  his  august  sire 
for  the  first  time.  The  Emperor  only  begins  to  asso 
ciate  him  with  great  public  ceremonies.  He  was 
dressed  in  black  velvet  coat  and  short,  full  breeches, 
with  red  stockings  —  the  broad  cordon  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor  over  his  shoulders  and  across  his  little 
chest.  He  walked  beside  his  father,  bowing  when 
we  bowed,  and  stopping,  a  little  fidgetty,  while  the 
Sphynx  walked  with  the  wise  men  of  the  world. 

"But,  on  entering,  the  Emperor  paused,  bowed, 
and  took  position;  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  Mgr.  Chigi, 
made  the  usual  formal  speech  of  congratulation,  to 
which  the  Emperor  replied  with  his  best  wishes  for 
the  perpetuity  of  thrones  and  the  prosperity  of 
peoples,  and  his  hopes  that  the  Exposition  would 
bring  the  millennium  this  year.  He  evidently  had 
his  brain  full  of  the  vast  results  that  are  to  accrue 
to  him  from  that  unsightly  structure  in  the  Champ 
de  Mars.  He  then  went  around  the  circle,  speaking 
a  word  to  most  of  the  Ministers.  I  stood  next  to 
Almonte  and  waited  with  great  interest  to  see  how 
they  met. 

"The  Emperor  came  rolling  up  to  the  Mexican 
and  stopped.  Both  bowed.  Almonte  seemed  rather 
ill  at  ease.  The  Emperor  held  him  a  moment  with 
his  dead  eyes  half  shut.  He  then  said  in  a  manner 
which  was  carefully  cold  and  insolent,  'Les  choses 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  PARIS      243 

so nt  bien  compliquees  ld-basf  The  poor  devil,  who 
doubtless  feels  himself  lost  by  his  advocacy  of  the 
Imperial  cause  in  Mexico,  had  no  reply  to  this  inso 
lent  remark  from  his  angry  and  ungrateful  tempter. 
The  Emperor  bowed,  the  Prince  Imperial  bowed, 
and  Almonte  bowed.  I  did  not  dare  to  look  at  him. 
"I  looked  at  the  Emperor  instead,  who  came  to 
Gen'l  Dix  and  was  very  gracious  —  speaking  French 
this  time  —  asked  the  General  where  he  lived  and 
said  it  was  a  beau  quartier  —  the  General  said  yes, 
thanks  to  His  Majesty —  and  His  Majesty  pulled  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  into  a  sort  of  smile  and  bowed 
to  the  General  and  bowed  to  me  and  passed  to  Brazil 
—  and  put  a  malicious  little  question  to  Brazil  about 
its  war  —  and  then  walked  almost  hastily  past  the 
small  Powers  --  pausing  an  instant  with  Fane  (who 
was  below  us,  having  been  presented  five  minutes 
later  the  day  we  were)  --then  passed  out;  and  we 
loafed  down  to  the  door  and  waited  in  the  uncom 
fortable  entry  for  our  carriages,  till  we  were  blue  and 
ill-natured.  Then  made  calls  on  the  necessary  nobs 
by  writing  our  names  in  a  book  at  their  door,  and  at 
last  went  home  and  took  off  our  livery  and  were  glad 
it  was  over." 

Before  the  end  of  that  month  of  January,  John 
Hay  was  on  his  way  home.    His  year  and  a  half  in 


244  JOHN  HAY 

Paris  had  made  him  what  he  had  instinctively 
yearned  to  be  since  boyhood  —  a  cosmopolite.  His 
life  at  Washington  had  given  him  a  knowledge  of 
all  sorts  of  Americans  in  war-time;  at  Paris,  the 
world  capital,  he  saw  society  in  Imperial  form,  — 
elegant,  luxurious,  cynical,  sophisticated,  —  but  he 
also  saw,  behind  the  "blazing  hedges  of  tinsel,"  the 
unlovely  machinery  of  despotism.  So  he  came  home 
a  man  of  the  world,  but  an  unalloyed  American  whom 
the  seductions  of  an  Empire  only  left  a  more  zealous 
believer  in  a  Republic. 


CHAPTER  X 

WASHINGTON  DURING   RECONSTRUCTION 

HAY  reached  New  York  on  February  I,  1867, 
spent  the  day  and  evening  with  some  of  his 
cronies,  and  took  the  Owl  Train  for  Washington. 
"  Met  on  the  cars  a  lame  darkey  in  trouble,  and  paid 
his  fare  to  Washington."  The  Diary  during  the  suc 
ceeding  weeks  throws  many  side-lights  on  life  at  the 
Capital  at  an  interesting  moment. 

The  conflict  between  President  Andrew  Johnson 
and  Congress  was  becoming  angry.  The  Radical 
Republicans  had  begun  to  push  the  fighting  to  the 
point  where  a  trial  for  impeachment  could  not  be 
avoided.  The  Reconstruction  of  the  Southern  States, 
lately  in  rebellion,  called  out  the  worst  passions  of 
extremists  of  both  sides,  who  would  not  learn  that 
rancor  can  never  do  the  work  of  justice,  much  less 
of  generosity,  in  cementing  a  peace. 

Many  of  the  Republicans  believed  that,  unless  the 
vanquished  Southerners  were  sternly  watched,  they 
would  foment  insurrection,  and  so  denature,  if  they 
did  not  actually  nullify,  the  results  attained  by  the 
Civil  War.  Others  supposed  that  they  had  the  best 
of  warrants  for  making  the  way  of  the  transgressor 


246  JOHN  HAY 

as  hard  as  possible.  The  desire  to  atone  for  the 
immemorial  persecution  of  the  Black  Man  by  sud 
denly  proclaiming  him  the  political  equal  of  the  White 
Man,  and  even  by  setting  him  up  to  rule  over  the 
White  Man,  moved  many  zealots.  The  politicians, 
as  usual,  traded  on  the  enthusiasm  of  the  unwise,  or 
availed  themselves  of  the  scoundrel's  last  refuge  — 
patriotism. 

To  the  immense  misfortune  of  the  country,  and  to 
his  own,  President  Johnson  had  neither  the  tempera 
ment,  training,  nor  tact  to  meet  such  a  crisis.  His 
tory  has  justified  many  of  his  measures,  and  has 
applauded  his  resistance  to  the  fire-eaters  who  cried 
for  vengeance  on  the  stricken  Rebels;  but  his  op 
ponents  saw  nothing  but  ill-masked  craft  or  patent 
treachery  in  his  acts,  and  his  friends  felt  no  loyalty 
to  his  person.  Never  was  the  patience  of  Lincoln, 
never  were  his  fairness  and  spirit  of  conciliation,  so 
sorely  needed.  For  lack  of  him  the  wounds  of  war 
did  not  cicatrize  and  the  process  of  Reconstruction 
became  an  ignoble  tragedy,  long  drawn  out. 

"I  drove  to  Willard's,"  Hay  writes;  "saw  the 
same  dead  beats  hanging  around  the  office,  the  same 
listless  loafers  moving  gloomily  up  and  down,  pen 
sively  expectorating.  Several  shook  hands  with  me 
cordially ;  the  Radical  fellows  wanting  to  sympathize 
with  me  as  a  martyr  and  a  little  disappointed  when 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  247 

they  found  I  was  none.  Lamon  picked  me  up  and 
I  went  to  his  office;  saw  Judge  [Jeremiah  S.]  Black 
and  talked  politics  for  a  while.  The  terrible  defeats 
of  the  past  year  have  sobered  and  toned  down  the 
Conservatives.  They  talk  very  quietly  and  very 
sensibly." 

Then  he  drove  to  the  State  Department.  Secre 
tary  Seward  "  came  swinging  in,  saying,  'Well,  John 
Hay,  so  you  got  tired  of  it  and  came  home/  'Yes/ 
I  said,  'it  was  time.  I  had  enough  of  the  place  and 
the  place  had  enough  of  me/ 

"He  then  went  into  a  long  and  very  clever  dis 
quisition  on  the  dangers  of  a  man  holding  office  — 
the  desiccation  and  fossilizing  process  --  illustrating 
it  by  Mr.  Hunter  and  saying  he  feared  Nicolay  was 
getting  into  that  way.  I  assured  him  Nicolay  was 
not;  that  he  was  single-heartedly  pursuing  10,000 
dollars,  and  that  when  he  got  it  he  would  come  home 
and  go  to  his  ranch.  He  was  glad  to  hear  that,  he 
said. 

"He  talked  of  the  Motley  business,  which  was  new. 
He  explained  his  letter  to  Motley,  which  to  me 
needed  no  explanation;  being  the  same  as  he  sent 
to  Nicolay,  and  which  Nicolay  and  I  thought  was 
meant  to  call  out  a  denial  simply  of  the  charges  made 
against  him.  The  Copperheads  and  Democrats  who 
now  form  almost  the  entire  support  of  the  President, 


248  JOHN  HAY 

are  continually  boring  him  for  offices  and  accusing 
Mr.  Seward  of  wickedly  keeping  in  their  places  the 
old  Radical  Lincoln  appointees.  They  make  charges 
against  these,  and  Mr.  Seward  sends  them  notifica 
tions  thereof.  Everybody  but  Motley  has  considered 
them  as  kindly  intended,  and  answered  them  in  that 


sense." 


Since  Motley's  recall  from  Vienna  directly  shaped 
John  Hay's  career,  and  is  often  referred  to  in  his 
Journal,  we  may  describe  it  briefly.  It  caused  a 
fuming  scandal  at  the  time,  added  to  popular  in 
dignation  against  President  Johnson,  disturbed  Se- 
ward's  friends,  and  cut  deeply  into  the  proud  nature 
of  Motley  himself. 

A  nondescript  person  named  George  W.  Mc- 
Crackin,  of  New  York,  wrote  from  Paris  to  Presi 
dent  Johnson  complaining  that  the  American  diplo 
matists  abroad  were  disloyal  to  the  Administration. 
He  charged  that  Motley  not  only  did  not  pretend  to 
conceal  his  disgust  at  the  President's  "whole  con 
duct,"  but  despised  American  democracy  and  pro 
claimed  "loudly  that  an  English  nobleman"  was 
"  the  model  of  human  perfection."  "There  is  not  in 
all  Europe,"  McCrackin  added,  "a  more  thorough 
flunkey  or  a  more  un- American  functionary."  Per* 
haps  McCrackin  hankered  after  a  diplomatic  posi 
tion,  for  he  noted  enviously  that  Massachusetts 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  249 

monopolized  the  lion's  share  of  the  consulates;  per 
haps  Mrs.  Motley,  never  having  heard  of  Mrs. 
McCrackin  (if  that  lady  existed),  neglected  to  invite 
her  to  tea;  perhaps  McCrackin  was  simply  an  austere 
patriot  of  the  Catonic  variety  —  let  us  give  him 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 

President  Johnson,  already  at  odds  with  his  party 
and  with  Congress,  and  irritated  by  the  popular  in 
sinuations  against  his  own  integrity,  handed  Mc- 
Crackin's  letter  to  Seward,  and  bade  him  to  send 
formal  inquiries  to  the  diplomats  arraigned  by 
McCrackin  as  to  their  attitude.  Seward  supposed 
that  Motley  would  make  light  —  as  he  himself  did 
—  of  the  random  accuser.  Motley,  however,  was 
thoroughly  incensed,  and  instead  of  sleeping  over 
the  matter,  he  hurried  off  a  long  disavowal  of  the 
charges,  and  closed  by  handing  in  his  resignation. 
When  Seward  received  this,  he  replied  that,  of 
course,  the  resignation  could  not  be  accepted;  but 
on  giving  the  President  the  summary  of  Motley's 
letter,  Johnson  said,  "with  a  not  unnatural  asperity, 
1  Well,  let  him  go.' "  So  Seward  had  to  recall  his  des 
patch  by  cable,  and  Motley  resigned.  After  hearing 
Seward's  story,  Hay  wrote  to  Nicolay:  "He  [Mot 
ley]  becomes  a  high-priced  martyr  and  has  the  sure 
thing  on  a  first-class  mission  two  years  hence.  It  is 
hard  for  Seward  to  save  Lincoln's  friends  from  being 


250  JOHN  HAY 

pushed  off  their  stools  by  hungry  Copperheads;  he 
defends  them  when  he  can." 

In  the  Diary  there  follows  the  rest  of  Seward's 
conversation  on  February  2,  which  illuminates  both 
Seward  himself  and  the  situation  as  he  saw  it. 

''He  told  me  Frederick  Seward  had  gone  to  St. 
Domingo  to  buy  a  harbor  and  bay  for  a  naval  station 
for  the  United  States.  Not  having  heard  a  word  since 
they  sailed  —  Admiral  Porter  and  he  —  he  was  a 
little  anxious  about  him. 

"He  talked  a  great  deal  of  the  present  position 
of  politics  and  of  his  own  attitude.  He  never  seemed 
to  me  to  better  advantage.  His  utter  calmness  and 
cheerfulness,  whether  natural  or  assumed,  is  most 
admirable.  He  seems  not  only  free  from  any  polit 
ical  wish  or  aspiration,  but  says  distinctly  that  he 
cares  nothing  for  the  judgment  of  history,  so  that  he 
does  his  work  well  here. 

"He  speaks  utterly  without  bitterness  of  the  oppo 
sition  to  him  and  the  President.  He  thinks  the  issue 
before  the  country  was  not  fairly  put,  but  seems 
rather  to  admire  the  cleverness  with  which  the  Rad 
ical  leaders  obscured  and  mis-stated  the  question  to 
carry  the  elections.  He  says  the  elections  in  short 
amount  to  this:  — 

"  Congress  to  the  North.  Do  you  want  rebels  to  rule 
the  Government?  —  No. 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  251 

"Do  you  want  more  representation  than  the 
South?  —  Yes. 

"  Do  you  want  negroes  to  vote  in  the  South  and 
not  in  the  North?  -  -  Yes. 

"Do  you  want  to  give  up  the  fruits  of  victory  to 
the  South?  —  No. 

11  Congress  to  the  South.  Do  you  want  your  negroes 
to  vote,  and  not  Northern  negroes?  —  No. 

"  Do  you  want  to  lose  fifty  members  of  Congress? 

—  No. 

"  Do  you  want  to  be  deprived  of  a  vote  yourselves? 

—  Not  by  a  damned  sight. 

"And  so  the  issue  is  clearly  presented  in  such  a 
style  as  to  decide  the  question  beforehand. 

"He  asked  me  if  I  wanted  anything  —  if  I  would 
like  to  go  back  to  Europe.  I  said  I  would  like  any 
thing  worth  having,  if  it  could  be  given  to  me  with 
out  any  embarrassment  to  him  or  the  President  at 
the  present  time/' 

Hay  spent  the  evening  with  his  old  friend,  Harry 
Wise,  who,  he  records,  "is  disgusted  with  Johnson. 
His  first  words  to  me  were,  '  Everything  is  changed 

—  you  find  us  all  Copperheads/   Painter  said,  *  You 
will  find  the  home  of  virtue  has  become  the  haunt  of 
vice.'    [Henry]  Adams  said,  'A  man  asked  me  the 
other  day  if  I  had  been  at  the  White  House  lately, 
and  I  told  him  No.   I  want  to  remember  that  house 


252  JOHN  HAY 

as  Lincoln  left  it.'  Every  one  I  met  used  some  such 
expression.  It  is  startling  to  see  how  utterly  with 
out  friends  the  President  is." 

On  Sunday,  Hay  "went  to  church  alone.  Walked 
home  with  Miss  L.  and  listened  a  half  hour  to  her 
clever  Washington  gossip  —  the  most  spirituel  in 
the  world.  Then  made  several  visits;  saw  Hooper1 
and  Agassiz." 

Hay  dined  with  Secretary  Seward  at  four  o'clock 
—  an  hour  commended  to  the  attention  of  epicures. 
Doolittle2  and  Thurlow  Weed  came  in.  Their  talk 
was  on  populations,  ancient  and  modern,  Weed  hav 
ing  most  to  say  about  Rome  and  Italy,  and  Seward 
about  the  East,  Babylon  and  Palestine.  "His  pic 
tures  of  the  desolation  of  those  countries,  which  once 
nourished  [their]  millions,  and  where  now  a  rat 
would  starve,  were  very  graphic." 

"He  suddenly  said  to  me:  'And  now,  John  Hay, 
if  it  were  not  that  Weed  is  continually  in  the  way, 
I  would  make  you  a  Minister.  But  it  seems  Mr. 
Harris 3  is  a  very  good  man  and  has  been  defeated, 
and  the  President  is  fond  of  him  and  so  a  mission 
must  be  kept  for  him.  There  is  a  vacancy  in  Sweden, 
and  I  suppose  Weed  will  insist  on  Harris  having  it.' 

s  Samuel  Hooper,  member  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts. 
*  James  R.  Doolittle,  Senator  from  Wisconsin. 
8  Ira  Harris,  Senator  from  New  York. 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  253 

" '  Would  Harris  take  such  small  change? '  I  asked. 
"Here  Weed,  who  had  not  much  relished  Se- 
ward's  badinage,  broke  out,  '  It  is  too  good  for  him. 
He  would  take  anything.  He  deserves  nothing/ 

"This  led  to  some  conversation  on  Cowan's1 
chances.  They  all  thought  them  rather  slim.  Seward 
said  it  ought  to  be  known  in  justice  to  Cowan  that 
he  had  asked  for  nothing  and  knew  nothing  of  the 
appointment  until  it  came  to  the  Senate.  Doolittle 
said  he  would  try  to  persuade  Sumner  to  report  upon 
the  nomination  without  a  recommendation  and  let 
the  Senate  act  upon  it  in  that  way. 

"Seward  asked  Doolittle  if  he  had  any  influence  left 
in  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations?  'Scarcely 
any/  said  Doolittle.  'If  there  were  anybody  there 
you  could  depend  on,'  said  Seward,  '  I  would  like  to 
have  mischievous  and  annoying  questions  about  our 
foreign  policy  prevented.  When  a  private  negotia 
tion  is  begun  and  not  finished,  a  blast  of  publicity 
destroys  it;  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  done.  The 
attention  and  jealousy  of  the  world  outside  is  at 
tracted  to  us  and  obstacles  spring  up  in  an  hour.  I 
have  an  understanding  with  Banks  and  have  always 
had  such  a  one  with  Sumner,  until  he  has  of  late  be 
come  hopelessly  alienated.  Conness 2  is  especially 

1  Senator  Edgar  Cowan  of  Pennsylvania  nominated  as  Minister  to 
Austria,  but  not  confirmed. 

2  John  Conness,  Senator  from  California. 


254  JOHN  HAY 

troublesome.  I  could  manage  him  by  giving  him 
all  the  offices  in  the  Department,  but  he  is  so  greedy 
and  unreasonable  that  one  cannot  talk  sensibly  with 
him." 

Thurlow  Weed  having  left  for  New  York  just 
after  dinner,  Doolittle  and  Seward  canvassed  the 
situation.  The  former  ''thought  the  public  temper 
was  calming  a  little.  Seward  agreed  with  him  — 
thought  every  day  was  a  day  gained  for  the  cause 
of  reason.  Doolittle  said  Wade  1  was  very  ambitious 
for  the  place  of  President  of  the  Senate,  --  that  he 
had  great  strength;  but  that  Fessenden2  was  begin 
ning  to  be  spoken  of;  that  Fessenden  evidently  de 
sired  to  be  elected  —  which  was  a  little  unexpected, 
as  Fessenden  had  never  for  a  moment  occupied  the 
chair,  but  had  always  avoided  taking  it.  The  same  is 
true  of  Wade. 

"Seward  said  that  Morgan3  had  called  upon  him 
that  afternoon  and  had  said  the  same  thing  of  Fes 
senden.  Seward  told  him  he  was  for  Fessenden; 
though  that  would  probably  injure  Fessenden's 
chances  if  it  were  known;  that  Fessenden  was  by 
nature  and  habit  of  mind  a  safe  and  reasonable  man ; 
'though  he  has  more  temper  than  I,  for  I  have  none; 
he  would  bend  and  make  concessions  for  the  sake  of 

1  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  Senator  from  Ohio. 

2  William  P.  Fessenden,  Senator  from  Maine. 

3  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  Senator  from  New  York. 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  255 

retaining  his  power  to  do  good,  which  I  could  never 
do.  I  am  satisfied  that  Fessenden  wants  that  place 
for  the  good  he  can  do  and  the  harm  he  can  pre 
vent/  " 

Here  Hay  interjects  an  interesting  comment: 
"The  whipped-out,  stunned  way  of  talking  that  I 
have  seen  in  all  the  Conservatives,  is  very  remark 
able.  No  bitterness,  no  energetic  denunciation,  no 
threats;  but  a  bewildered  sort  of  incapacity  to 
comprehend  the  earnest  deviltry  of  the  other  side, 
characterizes  them  all --but  Seward,  who  is  the 
same  placid,  philosophic  optimist  that  he  always 
was,  the  truest  and  most  single-hearted  Republican 
alive. 

"As  [Doolittle]  rose  to  go,  Seward  said,  'You 
must  somehow  help  me  to  do  something  for  John 
Hay/  I  was  touched  and  astonished  at  this  kind 
persistence  of  the  Secretary  in  my  favor. 

"  I  staid  an  hour  or  so.  He  told  me  that  it  seemed 
as  if  they  would  prove  General  Dix  to  have  been  in  re 
ceipt  of  the  two  salaries  of  the  Minister  and  Naval 
Officer  [of  the  port  of  New  York].  He  seemed  much 
disgusted  at  this.  He  said, l  It  almost  makes  me  de 
termined  never  to  give  up  a  prejudice  again.'  He 
ran  over  General  Dix's  history,  showing  how  consist 
ently  the  General  had  always  pursued  his  bread  and 
butter  in  every  conjuncture,  always  getting  on  pretty 


256  JOHN   HAY 

well,  but  always  losing  the  great  prizes  of  his  ambi 
tion  by  an  unlucky  lack  of  political  principle  and  an 
over-greed  of  office,  in  every  period  of  party  crisis.  He 
had  always  been  opposed  to  him,  but  had  taken  him 
up  and  stood  by  him  since  the  beginning  of  the  War, 
in  spite  of  the  General's  attempt  to  'cut  under'  from 
time  to  time.  Seward  got  him  into  Buchanan's 
Cabinet  through  Stanton.  When  Bigelow's  place  [at 
Paris]  fell  vacant  by  his  resignation  last  July,  Seward 
kept  it  for  Dix.  And  now  it  seems  he  is  to  fall  by 
this  ignoble  charge  of  avarice. 

"We  had  some  comforting  optimist  talk.  I  believe 
so  utterly  in  Republicanism  that  I  am  never  troubled 
long  about  the  future.  Baron  Gerolt  came  in  and  we 
talked  Napoleon  and  Bismarck  and  fusil  d  aiguille." 

This  last  reference  reminds  us  how  recent  the 
mounting  of  Prussia,  and  of  Germany  dominated  by 
Prussia,  has  been.  In  1867  the  world  was  beginning 
to  perceive  that,  by  the  crushing  of  Austria  at 
Sadowa  the  year  before,  a  power  of  the  first  order 
had  come  to  the  front.  Men  were  already  specu 
lating  as  to  the  time  of  the  inevitable  contest  be 
tween  France  and  Prussia  for  mastery,  and  as  to 
the  relative  merits  of  the  French  chassepot  and  the 
Prussian  needle-gun. 

The  investigation  of  General  Dix's  alleged  draw 
ing  of  two  salaries,  which  the  Senate  made  a  pretext 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  257 

for  harassing  him,  resulted  in  his  favor.  Meanwhile, 
Hay  was  directly  affected  because  Seward  seems  to 
have  intimated  that  he  would  send  him  to  Paris  as 
Charge  d1  Affaires,  in  case  Dix  were  forced  to  resign. 
Hay  enlivened  the  days  of  waiting  by  making  the 
rounds  of  official  and  social  life,  in  each  of  which  he 
was  welcome. 

"I  went  to  see  Charles  Eames  —  found  there 
Ashton  and  Chandler.  Eames  was  unusually  ses 
quipedalian  over  the  Motley  correspondence  —  de 
nounced  Seward's  letter  as  one  'from  which  every 
element  of  tolerableness  had  been  carefully  elimi 
nated  ' ;  and  the  Treasury  men  came  in  with  the  same 
style  of  thing,  till  I  got  loud  and  oratorical  also." 

On  "one  of  God's  own  days"  he  joined  Mrs. 
Sprague  and  Miss  Hoyt,  " doing  a  constitutional," 
and  "walked  with  them  in  the  blessed  sunshine 
and  shopped  and  rode  in  street  cars  (they  paying, 
for  I  found  the  Fenians  at  Willard's  had  stolen  all 
my  money,  which,  like  an  idiot,  I  had  left  lying  on 
my  table.  The  curse  of  Donneraile  be  on  them!) 
They  took  me  in  the  afternoon  to  the  President's 
to  make  a  bow  to  Mrs.  Patterson  and  Mrs.  Stover. 
The  [White]  House  is  much  more  richly  and  carefully 
furnished  than  in  my  time.  But  the  visitors  were 
not  quite  up  to  the  old  mark,  which  itself  was  not 
hard  to  reach." 


258  JOHN  HAY 

Another  morning  Hay  went  to  Congress,  and  sent 
his  card  in  to  his  old  Springfield  acquaintance, 
Shelby  M.  Cullom.  "[He]  brought  me  in  on  the 
floor,  where  I  staid  an  hour  or  two  and  shook  many 
hands.  Everybody  said  something  about  the  better 
days  gone  and  nobody  spoke  of  the  better  days  com 
ing.  Yet  in  those  better  days  they  mourned,  a  mil 
lion  fine  fellows  were  slaying  each  other  with  swords 
and  guns,  and  the  widows  and  the  orphans  were  in 
creasing  faster  than  the  babies." 

On  February  6  Mr.  Seward  told  Hay  that  he  had 
appointed  him  a  temporary  employe  in  the  Depart 
ment  of  State,  to  act,  for  the  present,  as  Seward's 
private  secretary;  but  Hay  declined,  knowing  how 
quickly  the  men  who  were  caught  in  the  treadmill 
of  routine  ceased  to  be  thought  of  as  within  reach 
of  an  independent  career.  He  told  Mr.  Seward  that 
"if  he  wished  my  personal  services  in  the  Depart 
ment  that  of  course  they  were  entirely  at  his  serv 
ice;  but  that  if  he  had  done  this  out  of  his  own  usual 
kindness  for  me,  that  I  thought  best  to  decline ;  that. 
I  had  better  go  home  and  see  my  parents  for  the 
present.  He  agreed  with  me  and  left  me  perfectly 
free  to  do  as  I  liked,  saying  the  place  in  the  Depart 
ment  was  open  whenever  I  wanted  it.  He  said  he 
had  proposed  my  name  to  the  President  the  day 
before  as  Minister  to  Sweden.  The  President  said 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  259 

he  had  another  man  for  it  —  General  [Joseph  J.] 
Bartlett,  of  New  York.  We  are  doing  all  we  can  for 
the  soldiers,  you  know,  etc.  He  said  the  matter  was 
strictly  confidential  as  yet. 

"I  told  him  I  had  business  proposals  under  con 
sideration  —  they  were  not  what  I  wanted  but  would 
probably  support  me  and  give  me  in  time  a  compe 
tence.  He  said  he  had  no  doubt  that  a  good  position 
in  business  was  worth  very  much  more  to  me  than 
any  appointment  I  could  hold  under  the  Govern 
ment.  I  agreed,  but  said  that,  after  being  Minister, 
I  could  make  better  arrangements.  He  said  he 
would  not  forget  me.  I  thanked  him  for  all  his  good 
ness  and  took  leave. 

"Now  the  real  reason  I  declined  this  thing  was, 
I  believe,  a  motive  I  did  not  suspect  or  acknowledge 
to  myself:  the  note  and  telegram  I  had  received  the 
night  before.  I  went  to  Mrs.  Sprague's  and  she  had 
slept  on  it  and  said  no.  So  I  determined  to  stay  here 
till  after  Monday  anyhow." 

To  what  the  "note  and  telegram"  referred,  I  have 
no  clue:  presumably,  to  some  business  offer,  about 
which  Hay  had  asked  Mrs.  Sprague's  advice. 

The  Diary  now  introduces  us  to  a  personage  who 
has  been  often  mentioned  in  the  White  House  Jour 
nal  —  Charles  Sumner,  the  senior  Senator  from 
Massachusetts. 


26o  JOHN   HAY 

"I  dined  with  Sumner.  The  party  was  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Sumner,1  who  looks  very  sweet  and  matronly 
in  her  secondes  noces,  Miss  H.,  Mr.  Field2  of  Phila 
delphia,  George  Wm.  Curtis  and  myself.  I  like  Sum 
ner  better  since  his  marriage.  He  should  have  been 
married  long  ago.  Every  man  should  who  can  afford 
it.  His  ready-made  family  is  very  taking.  Little 
Bel  H.  came  running  in  for  dessert  and  rated  Curtis 
soundly  for  not  giving  her  the  largest  bonbon.  It 
was  quite  startling  to  see  Sumner  in  the  bosom  of 
his  family. 

"The  conversation  was  entirely  political.  The 
debate  of  the  day  in  the  Senate.  Sherman's  speech 
against  including  Cabinet  Ministers  in  the  Tenure  of 
Office  bill  was  rather  severely  criticized  by  Sumner, 
who  thought  he  had  been  too  magnanimous  in  allow 
ing  it  to  pass  unanswered.  Sumner  thought  the 
power  of  appointing  and  removing  members  of  the 
Cabinet  more  properly  belonged  to  the  Senate  as  a 
permanent  body  than  to  the  President.  He  said  the 
Senate  was  less  liable  to  become  depraved  and  bad 
than  the  President.  He  said,  'for  instance,  I  can 
scarcely  imagine  a  Senate  that  would  now  confirm 
Mr.  Seward.' 

"As  to  the  argument  in  favor  of  harmony  in  the 

1  Mrs.  Sumner  was  the  young  widow  of  Samuel  Hooper's  son. 
•  John  W.  Field. 


WASHINGTON   IN    1867  261 

Cabinet,  he  scouted  that  altogether.  He  said  that  in 
every  constitutional  government  in  the  world  the 
head  of  the  Government  was  frequently  obliged  to 
accept  ministers  that  were  personally  and  politically 
obnoxious.  That  it  was  the  duty  often  of  a  patri 
otic  Minister  to  remain  in  the  counsels  of  a  perverted 
administration  as  a  'privileged  spy.'  He  referred  to 
Stanton  and  said  it  should  be  made  impossible  for 
Johnson  to  remove  him. 

"  In  all  this  ingenious  and  really  clever  and  learned 
talk  of  Sumner's,  I  could  but  remark  the  blindness  of 
an  honest,  earnest  man,  who  is  so  intent  upon  what 
he  thinks  right  and  necessary  that  he  closes  his  eyes 
to  the  fatal  consequences  of  such  a  course  in  differ 
ent  circumstances  and  different  times.  The  Senate 
is  now  a  bulwark  against  the  evil  schemes  of  the 
President;  therefore,  he  would  give  the  Senate  a 
power  which  might  make  it  the  most  detestable  en 
gine  of  anarchy  or  oppression.  Had  this  law  that  he 
now  demands  existed  in  1861,  the  Rebellion  would 
have  had  its  seat  and  center  in  Washington,  and 
loyalty  would  have  worn  the  bloody  color  of  Revo 
lution.  I  told  him  so,  but  he  would  not  see  it,  saying 
if  the  South  had  taken  that  course  they  would  by 
that  act  have  abnegated  their  rebellion  —  which  to 
me  seems  absurd. 

"Gen'l  Dix  was  discussed.    Curtis  favored  letting 


262  JOHN  HAY 

him  slide  for  his  two  years.  Field  thought  the  '  hoary 
old  place-hunter  should  be  marked  and  punished/ 
Sumner  treated  with  contempt  the  charge  of  cumu 
lation  against  Gen'l  Dix.  His  crime  of  presiding  at 
the  Philadelphia  Convention  1  is  capital.  How  can 
the  Senate  reject  the  small  fry  of  renegade  Union 
ists  and  permit  to  go  unscathed  the  man  who  gave 
to  that  wicked  scheme  all  its  momentary  respecta 
bility? 

"Sumner's  account  of  the  rejection  of  McGinnis2 
was  very  amusing.  '  The  Senate's  answer  to  Master 
Seward.'  He  said  Bartlett  had  come  in  in  McGinnis' 
place.  'He  is  an  old-fashioned  Copperhead  —  did 
good  service  in  our  war,  they  say,  but  that  won't 
save  him."  ("Bartlett  was  at  last  confirmed," 
Hay  adds  in  the  margin.) 

"February  7,  Thursday.  Went  to  the  House.  The 
bill  for  the  military  government  of  the  Rebel  States 
was  up.  Brandegee 3  made  a  little  flourish  of  the 
eagle  with  a  long  Latin  quotation  that  made  the 
Western  members  grin.  Banks 4  I  talked  with  some 
time.  He  was  really  despondent  about  the  course 
things  were  taking  —  deprecating  most  earnestly 

1  A  convention  of  "conservative"  Republicans,  held  in  August, 
1866. 

*  George  F.  McGinnis,  rejected  by  the  Senate  as  Minister  to  Sweden. 
1  Augustus  Brandegee,  member  of  Congress  from  Connecticut. 
4  N.  P.  Banks,  member  from  Massachusetts. 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  263 

this  abdication  of  the  civil  power  in  favor  of  the 
irresponsible  military.  I  thought  the  case  was  not 
hopeless  —  bad  as  it  was  —  as  Congress  could  at  any 
time  resume  the  powers  it  now  delegates  for  a  tem 
porary  purpose.  He  said  the  people  would  more 
likely  acquiesce  in  a  bad  thing  done  than  work  for 
its  repeal.  I  talked  with  Boutwell 1  five  minutes 
afterwards.  He  was  confident  that  the  measure  was 
a  good  one  and  that  the  Army  could  be  trusted.  I 
think  there  never  was  an  army  that  could  be  trusted, 
as  an  army.  It  is  un- Anglo-Saxon  to  perpetuate 
this  state  of  things.  I  recognize  the  miserable  situa 
tion  of  the  South,  and  perhaps  this  bill  is  necessary 
—  but  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  do  for  all  that.  Woe  be  to 
him  by  whom  this  offence  cometh." 

In  the  evening,  after  calling  on  Seward,  who  showed 
him  a  superb  set  of  Chinese  chessmen,  Hay  went 
to  a  reception  at  the  White  House. 

1  'The  President  was  very  cordial  to  me:  said  I 
must  come  and  see  him.  Mrs.  Johnson  received  for 
the  first  time;  a  quiet,  invalid  old  lady.  The  crowd 
not  choice,  but  as  good  an  average  as  ever;  scarcely 
any  distinguished  people  and  none  squalid.  We  used 
to  have  plenty  of  both." 

Following   Seward's   advice,    Hay   went   to   see 

1  George  S.  Boutwell,  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  Republican 
Radicals. 


264  JOHN  HAY 

Browning,1  who  was  very  cordial  and  promised  at 
once.  "He  feels  very  gloomy,"  notes  the  diarist. 
"Thinks  we  are  going  to  the  devil.  He  is  a  brighter 
man  and  older  man  than  I,  but  I  know  we  are  not.1' 

February  8.  "Dined  with  the  Hoopers.  There 
heard  of  Banks'  unexpected  and  dramatic  heading 
off  of  Overseer  Thad  2  in  the  House.  Enormously 
clever  man  is  Banks.  Too  moderate  and  wise  just 
now  —  a  doomed  Girondin,  I  am  afraid.  Raymond  3 
is  as  clever,  but  not  as  good  and  strong. 

"Doolittle  said  the  other  night  to  Seward  that 
Banks  had  told  him  a  few  days  before  that  he  saw 
no  earthly  power  that  could  prevent  the  impeach 
ment  of  the  President.  This  impressed  Doolittle 
very  much,  as  he  said,  Banks  being  himself  against 
impeachment.  Seward  said  that  it  would  impress 
him  more  if  it  was  not  that  he  remembered  that 
Banks  had  thought  there  was  no  salvation  out  of 
Knownothingism  —  when  in  fact  there  was  none 
in  it. 

1 '  Went  to  Secretary  Welles's  reception.  Sheridan 4 
was  the  lion,  looking,  as  Miss  Hooper  says,  as  if  he 

1  Orville  H.  Browning,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  the  department 
before  which  the  Southern  land  claims  which  Hay  held  would  come. 

2  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania,  fire-eater,  leader  of  the  Re 
publicans  in  the  House. 

3  Henry  J.  Raymond,  M.  C.  from  New  York,  editor  of  the  New 
York  Times. 

4  General  Philip  H.  Sheridan. 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  265 

would  blow  up  on  short  provocation.  A  mounted 
torpedo,  somebody  once  called  him  —  inflammable 
little  Jack  of  Clubs  —  to  whom  be  all  praise.  Then 
a  German  Cotillon  at  Reverdy  Johnson's  1  -  -  very 
ill  led  by  a  booby  .  .  .  ,  who  danced  in  a  straddling 
sort  of  way, '  wide  between  the  legs  as  if  he  had  gyves 


on.' 


"  February  Q.  Went  up  to  the  House  again.  Talked 
with  C.2  about  the  affair  of  the  day  before.  Saw 
another  instance  of  the  curious  intolerance  of  the 
majority,  and  the  feebleness  of  individual  judgment 
when  opposed  to  the  decisions  of  the  caucus.  C.  was 
heartily  for  Banks  and  his  motion,  and  was  full  of 
delighted  admiration  of  the  way  he  carried  it  against 
Stevens  —  but  acknowledged  he  had  voted  the  other 
way.  He  says  Boutwell  is  jealous  of  Banks  and  anx 
ious  to  discredit  him  before  the  people  of  Massa 
chusetts.  I  got  the  end  of  Boutwell's  speech,  which 
was  very  fine  and  nervous.  Boutwell  always  shows 
to  good  advantage  when  thoroughly  roused  and 
excited.  Raymond  talked  a  little  —  clever  and  fluent 
as  ever,  and  impressing  nobody. 

"In  the  evening  there  was  a  German  Cotillon 
at  Baron  Gerolt's.  Kasserow  led,  and  very  well.  I 
danced  with  Miss  Haggerty.  Invitations  were  for 
6J,  being  Saturday.  People  accepted  and  went  early. 

1  Senator  from  Maryland.  *  Presumably  Cullom. 


266  JOHN   HAY 

We  dispersed  to  bed  at  midnight  with  a  queer  sense 
of  its  being  the  next  morning. 

11  Sunday,  February  10.  At  breakfast,  Drake  De- 
kay  handed  me  Nasby's  last  letter  about  the  legal 
lynching  of  a  negro  in  Kentucky.  The  wit  and  satire 
of  Locke  1  was  growing  so  earnest  and  savage  that  it 
is  painful  to  read  him.  This  article  is  as  pathetic  as 
it  is  grotesque. 

"  I  told  Sumner  what  I  conscientiously  believe, 
that  Seward  has  done  all  in  his  power  to  save  Mr. 
Lincoln's  appointees  from  being  displaced  by  the 
Copperhead  pressure ;  that  he  had  spoken  of  giving 
a  place  to  me  without  demanding  or  suggesting  any 
adhesion  to  the  present  administration  as  the  con 
dition  of  the  appointment. 

"I  asked  Sumner  if  he  did  not  intend  to  write  a 
history  of  these  times.  He  answered  in  a  way  to 
convince  me  that  he  had  thought  a  great  deal  of  the 
matter.  He  greatly  regretted  the  absence  of  jottings 
to  fix  in  his  mind  the  incidents  of  his  daily  intercourse 
with  the  President,  the  Ministers  of  Government  and 
the  leading  Congressmen.  He  considers  hims^ii  the 
most  highly  qualified  man  in  America  to  write  an 
exhaustive  political  history  of  this  great  period,  on 
account  of  his  great  and  unusual  facilities  of  inter- 

1  D.  R.  Locke,  political  satirist,  who  wrote  over  the  pseudonym 
of  "Petroleum  V.  Nasby." 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  267 

course  with  every  branch  of  government  and  opinion* 
He  said  '  it  was  impossible  to  do  anything  of  the  kind 
so  long  as  he  remained  in  the  Senate.'  I  suggested 
that  he  might  find  the  necessary  leisure  in  the  rep 
resentation  of  the  country  for  a  few  years  in  Eu 
rope.  This  suggestion  was  by  no  means  novel  to 
him. 

"He  told  me  that  several  months  ago,  when  he 
spoke  to  Seward  about  the  Harvey  *  matter,  Seward 
had  said  that  every  Minister  in  Europe  was  with  the 
President  as  against  Congress.  He  said  he  did  not 
answer,  as  he  might  have  done,  that  he  had  at  that 
moment  in  his  pocket  a  letter  from  Motley  and  one 
from  Hale  disproving  that  assertion. 

"Sumner  has  grown  very  arrogant  with  success. 
He  feels  keenly  the  satisfaction  of  being  able  to  bind 
and  loose  at  his  free  will  and  pleasure.  There  is  no 
selfish  exultation  in  it,  or  too  little  for  him  to  recog 
nize  —  it  is  rather  the  fierce  joy  of  a  prophet  over 
the  destruction  of  the  enemies  of  his  Lord.  He  speaks 
with  hearty  enjoyment  of  what  is  to  happen  to 
Cowan;  referred  to  Doolittle's  'sleek,  purring  at 
tempt  '  to  soften  him  in  that  matter  so  far  as  to  have 
Cowan's  name  referred  to  the  Senate  without  rec 
ommendation  —  and  his  snort  of  rejection." 

Hay,  as  we  have  seen,  interspersed  his  political 

1  James  E.  Harvey,  Minister  to  Portugal. 


268  JOHN   HAY 

conferences  with  fashionable  engagements.  His  life 
in  Paris  had  made  him  more  than  ever  at  his  ease 
in  society.  He  was  always  a  favorite  with  women. 

"  February  n.  Mrs.  Sprague  gave  a  beautiful  ball. 
The  ladies  who  danced  the  Cotillon,  and  many  who 
did  not,  had  their  hair  powdered  a  la  marquise.  I 
have  never  seen  so  beautiful  and  picturesque  a  room 
ful.  Some  of  the  most  striking  were  the  Hostess 
herself  (with  whom  I  danced),  the  Hoyts,  Miss 
Romain  Goddard,  Miss  Haggerty,  and  Mrs.  Banks, 
who  was  very  correctly  dressed,  even  to  the  extent 
of  the  blue  ribbon  around  the  neck,  a  little  refine 
ment  in  which  she  was  alone  —  Miss  Kinzie,  a  fresh 
Western  beauty  and  a  superb  danseuse.  Mrs.  Sum- 
ner  and  Miss  Hooper,  though  not  powdered,  were 
beautifully  dressed." 

During  the  evening,  Hay  talked  with  the  Chief 
Justice,  who  showed  him  Carpenter's  engraving  of 
the  Reading  of  the  Proclamation.  "He  objects  to 
the  whole  picture  being  made  subsidiary  to  Seward, 
who  is  talking  while  every  one  else  either  listens  or 
stares  into  vacancy.  He  thinks  it  would  have  been 
infinitely  better  to  have  taken  the  22d  of  September, 
when  the  Proclamation  was  really  read  to  the  Cabi 
net.  I  referred  to  Seward's  criticism  that  the  subject 
was  not  well  chosen  —  that  the  really  decisive  Cabi 
net  meeting  was  that  at  which  it  was  decided  to  pro- 


WASHINGTON   IN   1867  269 

vision  and  reinforce  Fort  Sumter.  He  said  there  was 
no  such  meeting;  that  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  the  opinion 
of  the  Cabinet  in  writing;  that  there  were  but  two 
of  the  Cabinet  who  favored  the  reinforcement,  him 
self  and  Blair;  that  Blair  was  more  decided  than 
he  in  favor  of  reinforcing  the  fort;  that  he  (Chase) 
thought  some  strong  and  decided  assertion  or  proc 
lamation  of  the  intention  of  the  Government  should 
have  been  made  at  that  time.  Chase  was  always  a 
little  addicted  to  coups  de  theatre. 

11 1  said  I  thought  an  exaggerated  importance  was 
often  ascribed  to  the  manner  in  which  events  were 
accomplished;  that  in  great  revolutionary  times 
events  accomplished  themselves  not  by  means  of, 
but  in  spite  of,  the  well-meant  efforts  of  the  best  and 
wisest  men.  The  Girondins  nearly  monopolized  the 
brains  of  France;  yet  they  were  crushed  out,  as  it 
was  probably  necessary  they  should  be  —  that  the 
destiny  of  the  people  should  be  accomplished  through 
their  fever  and  their  struggles. 

"He  quite  agreed  with  this,  insisting,  however, 
upon  the  individual  responsibility  of  each  one  to 
do  what  seems  best  in  his  sight  for  the  common 
wealth. 

"Of  course  this  was  also  my  view.  I  am  obsti 
nately  optimist,  but  not  fatalist.  Every  man  should 
do  what  he  thinks  is  right,  but  he  should  know  also 


270  JOHN  HAY 

that  what  the  Republic  does  is  right  —  in  the  larg 


est  sense." 


The  Dix  case,  on  which  hung  Hay's  prospects  of 
a  diplomatic  post,  was  delayed  from  day  to  day  in 
the  Senate.  Charles  Sumner,  the  dominating  influ 
ence  in  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  held 
out  against  confirming  him  with  the  stubbornness 
of  a  virtuous  fanatic,  basing  his  opposition,  not  on 
the  charges  of  cumulation  of  offices,  but  on  Dix's 
having  presided  over  the  Philadelphia  Convention. 
Sumner  said:  "It  is  the  only  ground  I  can  stand 
on.  I  once  reported  against  a  man  because  he  had 
delirium  tremens.  Saulsbury  and  McDougall 1  de 
nounced  me  as  a  water-drinking  fanatic.  I  once  ob 
jected  to  a  candidate  that  he  could  not  read.  I  was 
accused  of  searching  an  impossible  Boston  ideal  of 
scholarship  for  public  service.  So  now,  if  I  say  of  a 
man  that  he  supports  the  policy  of  the  President, 
and  that  I  will  not  send  him  abroad  to  misrepresent 
me  and  the  Senate,  that  is  intelligible  and  satis 
factory." 

Writing  to  Nicolay  at  this  time  Hay  says:  "Sum 
ner  has  blood  in  his  eye.  He  is  splendid  in  his 
present  temper  —  arrogant,  insolent,  implacable  — 
thoroughly  in  earnest  —  honest  as  the  day." 

1  Senators  Willard  Saulsbury,  of  Maryland,  and  James  A.  Mc 
Dougall,  of  California. 


WASHINGTON   IN    1867  271 

Whilst  the  appointment  hung  fire,  Hay  cast  about 
for  an  alternative  occupation.  He  received  offers  to 
join  a  firm  of  lawyers,  or  to  become  a  claim  agent. 
Either  promised  a  good  income  in  those  days,  when 
the  American  citizen  who  could  not  think  up  some 
claim  against  the  national  Treasury  was  either  hope 
lessly  dull  or  singularly  honest.  Hay  himself  had 
bought  in  1864  seven  pieces  of  land  in  Florida,  which 
he  now  got  patents  for;  but  this  speculation  never 
bore  fruit  for  him. 

"  February  12.  After  dinner  went  in  to  say  good 
night  to  the  Chief  Justice.  His  guests  had  just  gone; 
it  was  eleven  o'clock.  I  walked  up  and  down  the 
deserted  salon  with  him  a  few  moments.  He  said 
there  had  been  a  good  many  Southern  people  there 
that  evening ;  that  he  made  it  a  point  to  treat  them 
always  with  especial  courtesy.  I  agreed  that  this 
was  a  good  thing  to  do,  even  where  they  abused  you 
for  it  and  called  it  Yankee  subserviency  and  charged 
it  to  mean  motives.  They  know  it  is  not  true;  they 
feel  their  inferiority,  and  their  bluster  is  the  protest 
of  wounded  pride.  Chase  said  he  felt  kindly  towards 
the  people  of  the  South.  He  only  demanded  that 
no  man  of  any  color  should  suffer  for  having  been 
loyal  during  the  war;  which  is  little  enough  to  ask, 
and  which  must  be  insisted  on,  mat  ccdum" 

"  February  21.  Dined  with  the  Hoopers.  ...  Mr. 


272  JOHN   HAY 

Hooper  came  in  disgusted  with  the  action  of  the 
House  on  the  bill  to  redeem  the  7-30  notes  and  '  for 
the  inflation  of  the  currency.'  He  could  not  help  be 
ing  a  little  amused,  even  in  his  disgust,  at  the  neat 
way  in  which  they  had  taken  advantage  of  his  suc 
cess  in  getting  the  bill  introduced  'by  turning  it 
wrong-side  out  and  handing  it  back  to  him  passed.' 

"  During  this  week  saw  very  much  of  Chase  and  his 
family;  played  a  combination  of  billiards  and  10  pins 
in  the  parlor,  which  kept  us  out  of  politics." 

Tired  at  last  of  waiting,  Hay  went  to  New  York 
on  February  23.  There  he  talked  over  various  busi 
ness  projects,  and  saw  Guernsey,  editor  of  Harper's 
Magazine,  who  said  he  would  like  some  short  stories, 
but  "did  not  encourage  the  novel  nor  the  Lincoln 
book."  As  usual,  Hay  called  on  many  friends. 
"Thurlow  Weed,"  he  writes,  "has  spoken  to  me 
about  going  into  the  redaction  of  a  newspaper,  the 
Commercial  Bulletin,  which  he  "intends  buying  and 
running  as  a  Republican  paper,  he  assures  me.  I 
don't  much  like  the  idea  of  Hurlbert *  in  it,  and  the 
whole  thing  looks  to  me  hopeless.  This  is  no  time  for 
reactionary  measures." 

On  March  3,  Forney  telegraphed  that  Dix  had 
been  at  last  confirmed.  Hay  at  once  wrote  Secretary 

1  William  H.  Hurlbert,  a  brilliant  but  untrusted  New  York  edi 
torial  writer. 


WASHINGTON  IN   1867  273 

Seward  a  long  letter,  full  of  gratitude  for  his  benev 
olent  intentions.  "I  have  come  to  regard  you,"  he 
added,  "as  I  know  the  world  will,  when  the  smoke 
has  risen  from  the  battlefields  of  to-day,  as  nearly 
as  one  may  reach  it,  the  ideal  of  the  Republican 
workingman  —  calm  without  apathy,  bold  without 
rashness,  firm  without  obstinacy,  and  with  a  pa 
triotism  permeated  with  religious  faith." 

There  being  nothing  further  to  expect  from  Wash 
ington,  Hay  journeyed  to  Warsaw. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA 

HAY  returned  to  Warsaw  as  poor  in  purse  as 
when  he  set  out  for  Paris;  for  a  diplomatic 
secretaryship  was  ill  paid  and  led  nowhere.  In  spite 
of  his  fondness  for  the  great  world,  he  always  went 
home  gladly.  He  loved  his  parents;  he  delighted  in 
the  old  familiar  places;  and  as  he  grew  older  he  found 
more  and  more  refreshment  and  delight  in  nature 
herself. 

"  I  am  safely  lodged  at  last  among  my  Lares  and 
Penates,"  he  wrote  Nicolay  on  March  18.  "I  find 
my  parents  as  well  as  ever;  my  mother  better  than 
usual,  and  full  of  her  old  good  spirits;  my  father  at 
66  with  not  a  gray  hair,  with  ruddy  cheek  and  rav 
enous  appetite  of  a  growing  boy.  .  .  .  There  is  little 
comfort  in  the  country  now.  The  weather  is  hideous, 
i.e.,  what  people  insanely  call  'beautiful,  fresh,  cold 
weather/  A  cloudless  sky,  white  shining  distances, 
and  a  thermometer  ten  degrees  below  o  according 
to  Meinherr  Fahrenheit.  I  have  escaped  six  winters 
and  my  good  nature  has  been  nipped  and  frozen  in 
this  absurd  springtime." 

41  Poverty  everywhere,"  he  added;  and  he  warned 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA      275 

Nicolay,  who  was  still  consul  in  Paris,  "You  had 
better  not  come  here  till  you  are  kicked  out  and  our 
crazy  friends  in  the  Senate  have  legislated  all  the 
dead-beats  not  in  office  into  an  eternity  of  bread  and 
butter."  Among  other  possible  resources  which  he 
and  Nicolay  had  talked  over  was  a  biography  of 
Lincoln;  but  he  reports:  " Nobody  is  keen  for  our 
book.  We  will  have  to  write  it  and  publish  on  our 
own  hook  some  day,  when  we  can  afford." 

As  the  spring  wore  on,  Hay  took  great  pleasure  in 
gardening,  in  walks,  and  in  working  and  idling  in  just 
sufficient  measure  so  that  work  and  loafing  were  al 
ternately  satisfying.  He  leased  his  five-acre  apple- 
orchard  to  "a  quaint  and  most  worthy  man,  named 
Smith,  a  Methodist  colporteur  who  peddles  the 
Gospel  with  Methodist  sauce  in  the  winter  and  vexes 
the  envious  soil  in  the  summer."  "Two  fine  indus 
trious  Yankees,"  the  Durfee  boys,  "have  taken  the 
vineyard  and  the  ten-acre  block"  on  College  Hill  — 
"thoroughly  good  fellows  with  sand  in  their  giz 
zards."  Hay  himself  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  on  the 
different  places,  destroying  caterpillars,  "digging 
some,  planting,  pruning."  Here  follows  a  confession 
from  which  we  infer  that  traces  of  the  New  England 
conscience  still  clung  to  him.  "  I  find  a  singular  love 
for  that  kind  of  work  in  myself.  It  is  the  sense  of 
justification  it  gives  me  for  not  doing  nothing.  If  I 


276  JOHN  HAY 

stay  at  home  I  cannot  idle  or  read  for  amusement, 
without  being  haunted  by  the  ceaseless  reproach  of 
misspent  time.  But  in  the  fields,  tiresome  and  monot 
onous  as  the  work  may  be  —  such  as  shovelling  dirt 
or  dropping  corn  —  it  frees  me  utterly  from  the  sense 
of  responsibility  for  the  passing  hour.  I  am  doing 
work,  substantial,  real  work,  which  will  have  its 
result  doubtless  some  day,  and  so  I  plod  on  and 
watch  the  sun,  glad  after  all  when  my  day  is  done 
and  I  can  ramble  home  through  the  magnificent  hills 
and  valleys  that  surround  this  town.'* 

Nevertheless,  in  respites  from  the  haunting  re 
proaches,  which  we  may  suspect  were  not  very  acute, 
he  enjoyed  natural  beauty  without  thought  of  ma 
terial  profit.  "  I  never  was  so  close  to  nature  before 
since  I  was  a  child,"  he  tells  his  Diary.  "I  have 
watched  the  flowers,  like  a  detective,  this  spring." 
And  then  he  goes  on  in  quite  the  romantic  vein,  to 
rhapsodize  over  "a  little  patch  of  wild  woodland 
that  is  very  sweet  and  solitary  —  full  of  fresh  woodsy 
smells  and  far  enough  from  any  farmyards  to  be  ut 
terly  still  —  barring  the  birds  and  the  grasshoppers  — 
whose  racket  only  makes  the  solitude  more  perfect, 
by  proof."  Another  day  he  stumbled  on  a  bit  "of 
open  turf,  thick  in  blue  grass  and  superbly  illumi 
nated  with  great  purple  and  field  pansies  that  had 
probably  bloomed  for  years  unseen  by  any  eyes,  but 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA       277 

the  bright,  beady  ones  of  orioles  and  jays  and  cat 
birds.  It  was  worth  the  price  I  paid  for  the  land,  to 
feel  that  this  exquisite  show,  so  lavishly  running  to 
waste  year  after  year,  was  mine.  I  would  not  pluck 
them  — the  violets  and  phlox,  the  windflowers  and 
bluebells  —  because  I  loved  them." 

In  the  valley  pastures  of  his  neighbors,  however, 
he  picked  "redbud  hawthorn,  apple  bloom  and  plum 
blossoms,  right  and  left,  making  what  [he]  thought 
an  equitable  return  in  killing  about  a  thousand  ugly 
green-black-yellow  caterpillars  that  had  raised  their 
tent  on  the  limb  of  a  splendid  crab,  all  pink  and  fra 
grant  in  its  May  bloom.  .  .  .  Then  at  the  risk  of  my 
neck  I  clambered  up  the  bank  by  Grover's  —  where 
the  curving  precipice  looks  like  a  ruined  amphi 
theatre  of  the  woodland  gods  that  are  gone  -  -  I  got 
a  handful  of  columbine,  and  then  came  slowly  down 
to  the  river  and  along  its  pebbly  banks  home.  I  can 
never  get  enough  of  looking  at  the  River.  It  has  its 
new  fresh  beauty  every  morning  and  noon;  and  a 
new  and  unimagined  transfiguration  every  sunset." 

So  sings  the  landscapist  in  words,  the  Romanticist 
whom  Nature  stirred  with  genuine  though  vague 
emotions. 

But  what  should  he  be?  As  a  weaver  of  prose  idyls 
he  could  not  hope  to  keep  body  and  soul  together. 
A  breadwinning  occupation  must  be  found;  and  the 


278  JOHN  HAY 

quest  for  it,  in  the  case  of  a  man  like  Hay,  whose 
aptitudes  were  many,  offers  some  of  the  excitement 
of  a  sport.  Would  his  temperament,  or  would  oppor 
tunity,  triumph  in  the  choice? 

Two  or  three  possibilities  came  to  nothing.  Mun- 
roe,  the  Paris  banker,  had  suggested  that  Hay  might 
enter  that  house;  but  he  now  backed  out.  Of  another 
offer  Hay  says:  "I  can't  survey  the  prospect  of 
plunging  into  this  affair  without  a  sort  of  shuddering 
horror."  He  disliked  the  job  of  claim  agent,  in  spite 
of  its  lucrativeness.  The  law  did  not  attract  him. 
He  could  not  forget  that  he  had  spent  four  years  in 
Washington  as  Lincoln's  secretary, — a  memory 
which  exacted  a  certain  dignity  of  him. 

''I  can  scarcely  say  now  to  myself  what  my  plans 
are,"  he  records  on  June  3.  "Let  me  see.  Go  to 
Springfield  —  see  some  publishers  in  New  York  and 
Boston  —  write  L's  book  for  him  —  write  two  lec 
tures,  and  that  will  pretty  well  fill  up  the  summer. 
If  it  were  only  myself  that  I  thought  of  I  would  stay 
here.  I  will  have  an  income  —  all  things  succeeding 
—  of  at  least  500  [dollars]  a  year,  and  I  can  bring 
that  up  a  few  hundred  by  writing  —  and  have  a  more 
tranquil  mind  than  anywhere  else." 

Just  after  he  wrote  these  lines,  he  learned  through 
the  New  York  Times  that  he  was  to  be  appointed 
Secretary  of  Legation  to  act  as  Charge  d?  Affaires  at 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA       279 

Vienna,  the  post  Motley  had  quitted  in  dudgeon. 
On  receiving  the  official  notification,  which  had  been 
misdirected  and  was  a  fortnight  late,  Hay  left  War 
saw  for  New  York.  Of  his  journey  he  records  the 
following :  — 

"Rode  to  Carthage  in  the  same  seat  with  Robert 
Lincoln,  a  second  cousin  of  the  late  President.  He  is 
forty-one  years  old,  looks  much  older.  The  same  eyes 
and  hair  the  President  had  —  the  same  tall  stature 
and  shambling  gait,  less  exaggerated;  a  rather  rough, 
farmer-looking  man.  Drinks  hard,  chews  ravenously. 
He  says  the  family  is  about  run  out.  l  We  are  not  a 
very  marrying  set/  He  is  dying  of  consumption,  he 
said  very  coolly.  There  was  something  startling  in 
the  resemblance  of  the  straight  thicket  of  hair,  and 
the  grey,  cavernous  eyes  framed  in  black  brows  and 
lashes,  to  the  features  of  the  great  dead  man.  He 
was  a  pioneer  of  our  country.  Knew  my  father  since 
long  years.  Brought  a  load  of  wheat  to  Gould  & 
Miller  in  1842  with  ox  teams;  got  $90  in  gold  for  it. 
Told  me  that  in  1860  he  had  talked  to  'Abe'  about 
assassination.  Abe  said:  'I  never  injured  anybody. 
No  one  is  going  to  hurt  me.'  He  says  he  was  invited 
by  Abe  to  go  to  Washington  at  the  time  of  the 
inauguration,  but  declined,  thinking  it  dangerous  —  a 
naivete  of  statement  I  thought  would  have  been 
impossible  out  of  the  West." 


280  JOHN  HAY 

Hay  sailed  on  June  29,  1867,  from  New  York  on 
the  City  of  Boston  —  the  steamer  which  not  long 
afterwards  disappeared  in  mid-ocean  and  has  never 
been  heard  of  since.  Ten  days  later  he  landed  at 
Liverpool,  and,  like  most  Americans,  he  lost  no  time 
in  going  up  to  London.  There  he  enjoyed  during  a 
brief  stay  the  double  pleasure  of  seeing  some  of  the 
celebrities  of  the  time  and  of  visiting  Westminster 
Abbey  and  other  monuments  which  had  long  been 
shrines  in  his  imagination.  He  lunched  at  54  Port 
land  Place,  with  Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  Amer 
ican  Minister,  where,  he  says,  "we  tore  our  friends 
to  pieces  a  little  while.  Motley  got  one  or  two 
slaps  that  were  very  unexpected  to  me.  Sumner  and 
his  new  wife  were  brushed  up  a  little."  It  was  to 
this  marriage  that  Hay  referred  in  his  Paris  Diary: 
"Col.  Ritchie  informed  me  today  of  Sumner's  en 
gagement  to  Mrs.  Sturgis  Hooper.  He  wrote  a  let 
ter  to  Mrs.  Adams  announcing  his  engagement,  but 
did  not  even  mention  the  lady's  name.  This  is  em 
inently  characteristic.  The  great  point  with  Sum 
ner  is  that  he  is  to  be  married.  If  the  lady  happens 
to  get  married  about  the  same  time,  all  the  better  for 
her.  But  this  is  quite  a  secondary  consideration. " 

Hay's  record  of  an  afternoon  spent  in  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  contains  some  interesting  pen-por 
traits.  In  the  vestibule  he  met  Lord  Eliot,  "looking 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA     281 

with  his  blazing  head  and  whiskers  as  if  he  "had 
just  come  through  hell  with  his  hat  off.  .  .  .  On  the 
Government  bench,  to  the  right  of  the  Speaker,  the 
most  noticeable  man  was  Disraeli  [who  was  just 
carrying  through  his  Reform  Bill].  He  has  grown 
enormously  in  the  public  estimation  in  this  session. 
...  In  the  great  fight  now  beginning  between  Privi 
lege  and  Democracy  in  England,  the  Democrats  will 
have  need  of  all  their  skill  and  discretion,  for  the 
Aristocracy  seem  to  perceive  to  a  great  extent  the 
meaning  of  the  occasion,  and  they  will  throw  every 
thing  away  in  the  fight  that  does  not  seem  essential. 
If  the  Republicans  are  not  distracted  by  false  issues 
they  will  conquer  at  last,  by  the  force  of  numbers.  But 
they  must  make  a  good  fight  or  suffer  long  delays. 

"  While  we  were  there,  Disraeli,  Gladstone,  Forster, 
Newdegate  and  several  others  made  short  conversa 
tional  talks.  I  was  very  much  impressed  with  their 
directness  and  simplicity  of  statement.  I  think  the 
exclusion  of  the  public,  by  taking  away  all  tempta 
tion  to  display,  has  a  very  fine  effect  on  parliamentary 
oratory.  Nothing  could  be  clearer  and  finer  than 
Disraeli's  and  Gladstone's  manner  of  stating  their 
points. 

"The  members  sat  with  their  hats  on,  taking 
them  off  when  they  rose  to  speak,  and  replacing 
them  immediately  afterwards.  Many  had  their  feet 


282  JOHN  HAY 

on  the  back  of  the  bench  in  front.  Yet  on  the  whole 
their  demeanor  was  very  attentive  and  respectful. 
They  have  a  very  decided  way  of  expressing  their 
approbation  or  disapproval  of  the  member  speaking. 
I  admired  Newdegate's  coolness  in  holding  his  own 
and  talking,  unmoved  by  a  general  growl  of  ill- 
natured  comment,  until  the  Speaker  called  him  to 
order." 

The  debate  in  the  Commons  not  being  specially- 
interesting,  Hay's  party  crossed  to  the  House  of 
Lords  and  took  seats  on  the  steps  of  the  Throne. 

"The  Lord  Chancellor  was  in  his  seat.  In  front  of 
him  the  Clerks ;  on  either  side,  on  benches,  the  Peers. 
The  Government  occupying  his  right;  Lord  Derby 
at  their  head.  Nearest  us,  on  the  right,  were  the 
spiritual  Lords;  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  an 
elderly  and  rather  infirm-looking  man;  the  Bishop  of 
Oxford,  a  fine,  portly  prelate,  whose  blue  riband 
made  me  think  of  a  prize  ox;  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells  and  the  Bishop  of  London. 

"  On  our  left  sat  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh,  a  stiff  dry 
Scotchman,  with  a  wen  on  his  forehead.  Next  him 
snored  comfortably  Viscount  Sidney.  Then  came 
Lord  Stanhope.  Then  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  small  of 
stature  and  red  of  hair.  Moran  pointed  out  to  us  the 
tall,  slender,  finicky  Marquis  of  Bath,  who  was 
severely  nipped  by  the  Cotton  Loan;  Earl  Powis,  a 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA      283 

smaller  Forrest l  without  the  moustache ;  the  Duke  of 
Richmond,  a  good-looking  silver-haired  man;  Lord 
Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  a  rather  undersized  old  gentle 
man,  white-haired,  bent,  and  not  in  the  least  the 
grand  manner  that  Kinglake 2  fancies ;  and  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  and  Chandos,  the  most  remarkable- 
looking  nobleman  I  ever  saw --who  looks  in  style, 
station,  dress,  way  of  getting  over  the  ground,  face 
and  feature  like  a  brisk  country  grocer  in  New  Eng 
land.  Yet  he  is  one  of  the  best  bloods  that  the 
English  stud  can  show  and  is  a  bright  fellow  besides, 
as  his  plucky  retrieval  of  his  estates,  ruined  by  the 
waste  of  his  father,  shows.  Bourgeois  as  he  looks, 
he  is  as  proud  as  any  one  of  his  class,  they  say.  The 
Earl  of  Bradford  is  a  good-looking,  youngish  man. 
Lord  Rornilly  and  Lord  Cairns,  two  recent  additions 
to  the  law  Lords,  made  short,  sensible  speeches  while 
we  were  there." 

That  evening,  "a  good-hearted  grain-dealer  from 
Milwaukee,  who  has  been  to  Paris  for  ten  days  and 
comes  back  bored  to  death  because  he  could  n't  tell 
a  cabman  where  to  drive,"  took  Hay  and  his  com 
panions  to  Cremorne  and  the  Alhambra;  "which 
are,"  Hay  writes,  "  dreary  beyond  the  power  of  hu 
man  tongue  to  describe.  Yet  they  were  full  of  the 

1  Edwin  Forrest,  the  American  tragedian. 
x  In  his  "  History  of  the  Crimean  War." 


284  JOHN  HAY 

same  class  one  finds  in  the  Mabille  and  elsewhere, 
who  have  nothing  better  in  God's  world  to  do.  .  .  . 
We  passed  down  the  Haymarket  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour.  The  streets  were  full  of  poor  old  women  and 
some  not  so  old,  painted,  bedizened  and  miserable. 
...  It  was  certainly  in  London  that  Pope  learned 
that  'Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  frightful  mien/ 
etc." 

Before  leaving  London,  Hay  called  on  Motley,  just 
back  from  Vienna.  "I  shall  never  have  any  more 
doubt,"  Hay  records,  "as  to  the  long  mooted  ques 
tion  whether  it  hurts  a  man  to  cut  off  his  head.  It 
hurts  like  the  devil.  He  received  me  very  coolly 
and  stiffly,  not  speaking  a  word  in  reply  to  my  salu 
tation.  He  answered  in  the  dryest  and  briefest  way 
my  questions  about  his  family.  I  asked  when  he 
had  left  Vienna  and  he  began  to  talk.  He  grew  almost 
hysterical  in  his  denunciation  of  the  'disgusting, 
nasty  outrage  of  his  being  turned  out.'  'His  resigna 
tion  had  been  forced  from  him  by  a  trick  and  then 
snapped  at,  to  give  the  place  to  somebody  else/ 
1  But  the  crowning  insult  of  all  was  his  recent  letter 
of  recall/ 

"He  evidently  thought  that  the  Senate  was  going 
to  keep  him  in  by  rejecting  all  nominees,  and  was 
bitterly  disappointed  at  the  turn  things  had  taken. 
He  wanted  to  stay  at  Vienna  a  few  years  more  to 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA      285 

make  the  necessary  researches  in  the  archives  there 
for  his  history  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

"  We  talked  an  hour  or  so.  As  it  is  not  possible 
to  justify  entirely  the  conduct  of  the  Government  in 
this  matter,  I  did  not  attempt  that,  but  explained 
to  Motley  how  I  thought  he  was  mistaken  in  im 
puting  it  to  any  hostility  on  Seward's  part.  Seward's 
utter  indifference  to  attacks  and  his  philosophic 
calmness  under  abuse,  I  think,  render  him  a  little 
indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  his  sensitive  fellow- 
creatures  under  the  same  inflictions.  He  never 
dreamed  that  Motley  would  take  that  letter  in  such 
dudgeon,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  was 
a  frightful  one  for  a  gentleman  to  write  or  to  re 


ceive." 


At  a  farewell  dinner  at  Mr.  Adams's  Hay  reports 
that  they  "talked  among  other  things  of  the  late 
extraordinary  recantation  speech  of  Earl  Russell. 
Adams  says  Russell  has  been  always,  in  his  way,  our 
friend,  Gladstone  has  not;  has  been  led  away  by  his 
impulses  now  and  then.  Adams  thinks  Disraeli  has 
forced  the  present  bill  on  the  Tory  party,  that  he 
has  led  them  the  devil's  own  rigadoon  of  a  dance. 
If  so,  I  take  back  all  the  credit  I  have  given  them 
for  shrewdness  and  sagacity,  and  transfer  it  all  to 
Dizzy  himself.  Then  Adams  gave  a  most  humorous 
account  of  the  visit  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  the 


286  JOHN   HAY 

Monitor.  They  evidently  dislike  Fox  at  No.  54.  I 
hardly  know  why." 

Hay  went  to  the  Continent  by  way  of  Salisbury 
and  Stonehenge.  Early  in  August  he  reached  Vienna, 
where  he  established  himself  in  "an  apartment  of 
three  good  rooms,  kitchen  and  servant's  room,"  for 
which  he  paid  1500  florins  a  year.  It  being  summer, 
society  was  out  of  town,  so  that  he  had  all  the  more 
leisure  for  making  himself  familiar  with  the  city. 
His  zest  for  sight-seeing  had  not  worn  off,  and  for 
him  sight-seeing  included  not  only  galleries  and 
monuments  but  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  people. 

"The  great  luxury  is  music,"  he  writes  enthusi 
astically  to  Nicolay.  "One  of  the  Strauss  family 
leads  in  the  Volksgarten  several  times  a  week,  ad 
mission  40  kreutzer,  not  20  cents.  Or  you  can  cool 
your  nose  on  the  bars  of  the  enclosure  and  hear  it 
for  nothing  — if  you  are  not  Beamier  [an  official]. 
The  opera  is  good  —  the  only  ballet  I  ever  saw  that 
was  not  a  bore.  Faust  was  superbly  given  a  few 
nights  ago.  Mr.  Motley  has  a  box  and  has  given  me 
the  reversion  of  it  till  October,  in  which  I  am  luxu 
rious.  The  acting  is  very  fine  also  in  the  Hofburg 
Theatre,  the  classic  —  and  Offenbach  is  lord  over 
all  in  the  other  show-houses.  Blue  Beard,  Belle 
Helene,  and  the  Grand  Duchess,  have  delighted  the 
town  for  the  last  fortnight."  (September  2,  1867.) 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA    287 

Vienna  was  forgetting  the  tragedy  of  a  disastrous 
war  and  Paris  was  hastening  towards  destruction  to 
the  tuneful  frivolities  of  Offenbach  —  so  uncertain 
is  music  in  registering  the  moral  values  of  a  period. 

"The  suburbs  of  this  town  —  the  environs  ra 
ther —  "  Hay  goes  on,  "are  very  beautiful.  I  spend 
most  of  my  Sundays  in  the  mountains  and  valleys 
of  this  chain  of  the  Tyrols  that  seems  to  have  been 
caught  and  turned  into  a  wild  pleasure  ground." 

At  Vienna,  Hay  came  for  the  first  time  upon  a 
people  still  bound  by  ancient  religious  superstitions 
and  upon  a  government  which  still  permitted  a  large 
measure  of  ecclesiastical  control  in  the  affairs  of  the 
State.  He  observed  with  increasing  wonder  the  per 
sistence  of  medieval  ideals.  The  frequency  of  Church 
festivals,  encouraged  for  obvious  reasons,  stirred  in 
him  surprise  and  amusement.  On  such  occasions,  he 
writes,  - 

"The  whole  town  shuts  up  shop  and  goes  to  the 
country.  They  eat  a  good  dinner,  drink  a  good  deal 
of  beer,  and  smoke  many  cigars,  and  the  economies 
of  the  week  vanish  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  day. 
When  they  go  off  on  these  excursions  they  are  very 
sensible  about  it,  enjoying  themselves  in  a  most 
hearty  and  naive  way.  They  do  not  seem  to  need 
the  excitement  and  amusement  that  the  Parisians 
crave  or  demand.  They  are  contented  to  lie  on  the 


288  JOHN   HAY 

grass  and  look  at  the  white  clouds,  to  loaf  through 
the  balsamic  woods,  to  live  and  let  the  world  roll  on. 
They  break  very  easily  into  groups  of  two,  and  are 
not  ashamed  to  let  the  world  into  the  confidence  of 
their  tender  sentiments. " 

Vienna  prided  itself,  indeed,  on  being  the  gay 
capital;  and  to  foreigners,  the  Viennese  seemed  a 
people  incapable  of  emotions  deeper  than  a  waltz 
could  express,  or  of  griefs  too  poignant  for  a  waltz 
to  soothe.  Only  the  year  before,  Austria,  beaten  by 
the  terrible  Prussians  at  Sadowa,  had  lost  her  leader 
ship;  but  she  was  now  outwardly  cheerful.  The  war 
had  forced  her  to  adjust  herself  to  more  modern 
conditions;  and  Hay  studied,  as  best  he  could,  the 
progress  of  the  Compromise  with  Hungary  and  the 
various  reforms  which  were  eagerly  debated  in  par 
liament.  As  his  official  duties  took  up  little  of  his 
time,  he  spent  his  leisure  in  excursions,  or  in  watch 
ing  the  folk  life  in  the  streets,  or  at  the  theatre  and 
opera.  One  of  his  keen  pleasures  was  visiting  the 
galleries.  Already  at  the  Louvre  he  had  begun  to 
cultivate  his  taste  in  paintings  and  statues,  and  in 
London  he  "  walked  through  the  National  Gallery 
and  saw  for  the  first  time  Turner.  I  would  go  to  him 
very  often  if  I  lived  in  London,"  he  adds.  On  his 
way  to  Vienna,  he  had  seen,  at  Antwerp,  some  fine 
examples  of  the  great  Flemings.  Now,  at  the  Belve- 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA     289 

dere,  he  went  on  to  explore  the  magic  world  of  the 
fine  arts.  He  sets  down  his  enthusiasm  with  delight 
ful  frankness,  not  caring  whether  his  riper  judgment 
may  repudiate  his  first  impression. 

Thus,  on  going  to  the  Belvedere,  the  first  thing  his 
eyes  light  upon  are  "the  two  sway-backed  horses 
that  romp  before  the  palace  in  an  attitude  suggesting 
a  sudden  attack  of  mollities  ossium.  A  man  who  has 
once  seen  and  thoroughly  studied  the  Marly  horses 
at  the  gates  of  the  Champs  Elysees,  has  his  judg 
ment  formed  and  his  verdict  forestalled  for  any  other 
horses  that  have  ever  been  cast  or  hewn.  All  the 
other  rampant  horses  I  have  ever  seen  impress  me 
as  imperfect  imitations,  or  desperate  variations  of 
the  incomparable  marbles  of  Couston." 

For  subtlety,  fervor,  and  characteristic  flashes  of 
humor  none  of  his  notes  on  paintings  excel  the  fol 
lowing  description  of  Rubens's  portrait  of  his  second 
wife. 

"I  found  food  for  my  new  love  of  Rubens,"  he 
says,  "whom  I  detested  in  Paris,  but  to  whom  I  have 
made  reverent  recantation  since  Antwerp.  In  fact, 
the  picture  I  was  most  curious  to  see  was  his  Helen 
Fourment,  that  odd  and  fantastic,  artistic  pillory 
ing  of  a  pretty  woman's  immodest  fancy  and  a  hus 
band's  proud  and  sensual  love  for  the  disrespectful 
admiration  of  all  time."  .  .  .  [with  some  difficulty] 


2QO  JOHN  HAY 

"  I  came  before  the  object  of  my  search.  It  stood  in  a 
good  light  by  a  window.  ...  I  felt  as  glad  as  if  I  had 
found  a  lucky  stone.  So  she  stood,  those  centuries 
ago,  before  her  fond,  jolly  husband,  to  whom  Art  was 
its  own  excuse  in  everything.  You  can  see  in  the 
pretty  nai've  face,  with  its  great  blue  eyes,  full  yet 
of  childish  wonder,  framed  in  those  splendid,  crisp 
locks  of  gold,  the  struggle  of  love  and  vanity  against 
natural  modesty.  She  snatches  up  the  artist's  furred 
cloak  and  wraps  it  round  her  with  a  quick,  coquettish 
grace  —  and  all  the  warring  sentiments  are  appeased. 
They  are  as  old  as  Eden,  the  vanity,  the  sensualism, 
the  suggestive  concealment.  And  as  she  stands  thus, 
in  that  attitude  where  grace  and  awkwardness  are, 
as  in  all  real  women,  so  charmingly  blended,  the  fond 
eye  of  the  Artist  husband  catches  the  fleeting  love 
liness  and  fixes  it  forever.  The  sweet,  artless,  spoiled 
child  face  that  we  know  so  well,  that  walks  with 
Rubens  in  the  garden  in  the  Pinacothek  at  Munich, 
that  goes  sailing  up  to  heaven  in  the  altar-piece  at 
Antwerp,  and  stands  on  the  volet  of  her  husband's 
stupendous  work,  The  Descent  from  the  Cross,  is 
here  most  exquisitely  drawn,  and  the  enamoured 
artist  revels  in  the  red  and  white  and  blue  and  gold 
of  cheeks,  lips,  hair  and  eyes.  And  yet  you  see 
that  he  loves  no  less  the  soft,  round  pink  knees 
and  the  fat,  white  feet.  You  are  glad  Rubens  had 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA     291 
such  a  wife,  and  very  glad  he  did  not  marry  your 


sister." 


The  man  who  wrote  that  assuredly  lacked  neither 
discernment  nor  literary  skill;  yet  he  still  felt  him 
self  a  novice  in  art  criticism.  "I  think  I  shall  be 
friends  with  the  Belvedere/'  he  records  after  his 
first  visit.  "  I  spent  a  day  there  some  weeks  ago,  to 
get  the  'hang  of  the  schoolhouse.'  A  Western  boy, 
who  had  never  learned  his  letters,  on  his  first  day  at 
school  was  asked  by  the  schoolmistress  if  he  could 
read.  He  replied,  with  the  spirit  of  Western  pluck,  he 
reckoned  he  could  as  soon  as  he  got  the  hang  of  the 
schoolhouse." 

Equally  vivid  are  Hay's  sketches  of  street  scenes 
in  Vienna.  Here  is  one  of  a  religious  procession. 

"  Monks  in  dozens  with  shaved  heads,  the  first 
honest  shaved  heads  I  have  ever  seen,  all  sorts  of 
ecclesiastical  supes  with  candles,  that  flickered  in  the 
wind  and  went  out.  Some  lit  them  conscientiously 
and  shaded  them  with  their  hands.  Others  marched 
on  stolidly,  careless  of  appearances,  with  shameless 
black  wicks.  Six  expensive-looking  fellows  carried 
a  heavily  embroidered  baldaquin;  six  more  lighted 
them  with  gorgeous  red  lamps.  Under  the  balda 
quin  walked  a  very  pompous  party,  who  from  time 
to  time  stopped  the  procession  and  made  a  remark  or 
so  in  an  unknown  tongue ;  upon  which  the  whole  pro- 


292  JOHN   HAY 

cession  and  the  majority  of  the  bystanders  ducked, 
beat  their  breasts  and  moaned  as  if  in  severe  indi 
gestion.  A  smell  of  incense  filled  the  air,  which  to 
me  always  has  an  odor  of  good  company,  I  do  not 
know  why.  I  took  off  my  hat  with  the  rest,  and  was 
grateful  for  the  incense  and  the  music.  I  believe 
Austria  is  the  only  country  on  earth  where  the  priests 
wear  top  boots.  It  gives  them  a  remarkably  rakish 
and  knowing  air.  They  feel  their  oats  more  plainly 
here  than  anywhere  in  the  world." 

And  here  is  a  view  of  the  Viennese  Ghetto,  swept 
away  in  the  modernizing  of  the  old  town  which  was 
in  process  while  Hay  was  writing :  — 

"As  I  go  in  the  early  morning  to  take  my  plunge 
and  splash  in  the  Danube  water  in  Leopold  Stadt, 
I  walk  through  the  Tiefen  Graben,  the  deep  ditch 
which  marks  the  site  of  the  ancient  moat  of  the 
outer  fortress  of  the  city.  .  .  . 

"The  Tiefen  Graben  is  so  far  below  the  average 
level  of  the  city  that,  about  half  way  down  its  length, 
Wipplinger  Strasse  strides  far  above  it  in  the  air.  In 
the  T.  G.  you  wonder  what  that  suspension  bridge  is 
for,  and  in  Wipplinger  Strasse  you  gaze  with  amaze 
ment  at  the  men  and  wagons  burrowing  at  the  bot 
tom  of  the  ditch.  The  Tiefen  Graben  runs  into  the 
Gestade,  and  out  of  this  dark,  foul  and  utterly  ig 
noble  place  starts  the  Talzgries,  which  runs  for  a 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      293 

few  hundred  paces  and  ends  in  the  broad,  bright, 
garish  sunshine  and  wide  daylight  of  the  Donau 
Arm. 

''Along  this  unclean  street  rolls  an  endless  tide 
of  Polish  Jews,  continually  supplied  by  little  rivulets 
running  down  from  the  Judenplatz  and  the  cuts  de 
sac  of  that  neighborhood,  not  running,  but  trickling 
down  the  steep,  stone  bed  of  the  canons  called  Fischer 
Stiege  and  Marien  Stiege  and  Wachtel  Gasse,  Quail 
Alley.  These  squalid  veins  and  arteries  of  impov 
erished  and  degenerate  blood  are  very  fascinating  to 
me.  I  have  never  seen  a  decent  person  in  these  alleys 
or  on  those  slippery  stairs.  But  everywhere  stoop 
ing,  dirty  figures  in  long,  patched  and  oily  black 
gabardines  of  every  conceivable  material,  the  richest 
the  shabbiest  usually,  because  oldest  and  most  used, 
covering  the  slouching,  creeping  form,  from  the 
round  shoulders  to  the  splay,  shuffling  feet.  A  bat 
tered  soft  felt  hat  crowns  the  oblique,  indolent, 
crafty  face,  and,  what  is  most  offensive  of  all,  a  pair 
of  greasy  curls  dangle  in  front  of  the  pendulous  ears. 
This  coquetry  of  hideousness  is  most  nauseous.  The 
old  Puritan  who  wrote  in  Barebones'  time  on  the 
1  Unloveliness  of  love  locks'  could  here  have  either 
found  full  confirmation  of  his  criticism  or  turned  with 
disgust  from  his  theme. 

"What  they  are  all  doing  is  the  wonder.    They 


294  JOHN  HAY 

stand  idle  and  apathetic  in  the  sunshine,  or  gather 
in  silent  or  chatty  groups  of  three  or  four,  take  snuff 
and  blow  their  aquiline  noses  in  chorus  on  dubious 
brown  handkerchiefs.  They  have  utterly  revolu 
tionized  my  ideas  of  the  Hebrew.  In  America  we 
always  say,  'Rich  as  a  Jew,'  because  even  if  a  Jew 
is  poor  he  is  so  brisk,  so  sharp  and  enterprising  that 
he  is  sure  to  make  money  eventually.  But  these 
slouching  rascals  are  as  idle  as  they  are  ugly.  It  oc 
curred  to  me  that  it  might  be  those  long  coats  that 
keep  them  down  in  life,  and  that  the  next  generation, 
if  put  early  into  roundabouts,  might  be  spry  fellows. 
But  the  Jesuits  moved  the  world  in  their  long  coats. 
I  suppose  the  curse  of  the  nation  has  lit  on  these 
fellows  especially. 

"All  this  quarter  is  subject  to  them  apparently, 
for  the  little,  obscure  shops  in  the  blind  alleys  have 
Hebrew  signs.  This  was  another  shock  to  me.  Think 
of  tallow  and  onions  advertised  in  a  corner  grocery 
in  the  sublime  and  mysterious  characters  in  which 
the  Tables  of  the  Law  were  carved.  I  saw  that  this 
morning." 

Such  is  the  Ghetto  by  daylight.  Hay  is  equally 
graphic  in  describing  it  by  night,  when  he  "walked 
again  through  those  blind  alleys  and  swarming 
streets.  The  veil  of  darkness  made  the  crowd  more 
easy  and  confidential.  The  noise  of  traffic  was  over, 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      295 

but  the  small  hucksters  were  busy  shovelling  their 
green  peaches  and  astringent  pears  into  buckets,  or 
cooping  up  their  melancholy  chickens  and  ducks  that 
seemed  heavy-hearted  and  humiliated  that  the  day 
had  passed  and  they  were  not  stewed.  The  talk  in 
the  streets  was  noisier  and  freer ;  the  dinner  and  the 
darkness  had  loosened  these  awkward  tongues. 
Porters  and  charwomen  stood  in  discreet  corners  and 
squeezed  each  others'  hard  fingers.  The  same  mys 
terious  Hebrew  glided  by,  a  little  brisker  as  the 
night  gathered  and  loafing  time  was  shortened. 

"In  the  Gestade  I  came  across  a  group  of  little 
Goths  who  had  pulled  off  their  trousers  and  were 
lashing  each  other  merrily  with  them.  Old  women 
sat  dozing  on  their  doorsteps,  too  tired  to  rest  well ; 
almost  always  alone.  Their  men  were  dead  or  off  to 
the  beer  shops.  While  the  women  are  young,  they 
go  with  them.  But  with  age  comes  for  them  only  the 
brute's  drudgery  and  the  brute's  repose.  Under  the 
shadow  of  the  tall  black  hulk  of  Mary-Stairs  Church, 
young  women  sat  in  silence  with  shabby  and  ignoble- 
looking  men.  And  overhead,  between  the  high  walls 
of  the  narrow  streets,  you  could  see  as  clear  and  dark 
blue  patches  of  sky,  as  if  you  stood  on  the  icy  spire 
of  the  Matterhorn." 

"Began  to-day  to  study  the  substratum  of  Vien 
nese  life,"  Hay  writes  on  September  13,  1867;  but  I 


296  JOHN  HAY 

find  few  later  allusions  to  it.  "I  am  mentioned  in 
the  Fremden  Blatt  as  *  Der  Amerikanische  Minister 
Camel-Hey.'  That  looks  deliciously  Oriental:  I  can 
imagine  myself  in  a  burnous  and  yellow  shoes." 

He  continued  all  the  while  his  observations  of  the 
upper  classes.  After  spending  Christmas  Eve  at 
Mrs.  Lippitt's,  he  notes:  "The  young  ladies  were  as 
pretty  as  ever  and  very  easy  and  gay.  I  never  saw 
better  breeding  than  there  is  in  the  Haute  Bour 
geoisie  of  Vienna.  They  talked  German  to  me  for  the 
first  time,  and  I  was  astonished  at  their  wit  and  the 
profoundness  of  their  criticism  and  observation, 
which  I  had  utterly  failed  to  see  in  their  English.  (I 
think  one  reason  diplomatists  are  as  a  general  rule 
so  stupid  is,  that  they  are  so  much  in  the  habit  of 
speaking  a  foreign  language.)  The  whole  household 
praised  my  German  so  that  I  grew  ashamed  to  speak 
it." 

Here  and  there  Hay's  Diary  shows  us  glimpses  of 
life  at  Vienna,  and  of  the  theatrical  life  which  was 
closely  bound  to  it. 

"Last  night"  (December  17),  he  says,  "was  the 
first  reception  of  the  Due  de  Gramont,1  and  the  first 
night  of  the  new  ballet,  Nana  Sahib.  The  French 
Embassy  was  pretty  well  filled  with  pretty  faces 
and  toilettes.  Some  of  the  Hungarian  women  were 

1  French  Ambassador. 


THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      297 

strikingly  beautiful.  .  .  .  The  Archduke  Wilhelm 
was  at  Gramont's.  The  ladies  took  an  enormous 
interest  in  him  on  account  of  the  vow  of  celibacy 
which  as  Grand  Master  of  the  Teutonic  Order  he 
must  take.  There  was  also  a  daughter  of  Alexander 
Dumas,  a  miraculous  conception  of  ugliness." 

Under  the  date  18  February,  1868,  is  an  account 
of  a  ball  at  the  Palace  in  honor  of  the  wedding  of  the 
young  Grand  Duchess  of  Modena  to  Prince  Louis 
of  Bavaria. 

"In  the  Diplomatic  Circle,"  Hay  writes,  "I  was 
presented  to  the  Emperor  [Francis  Joseph]  by  Baron 
Beust.  His  Majesty  was  especially  courteous.  He 
spoke  among  other  things  of  the  wonderful  resources 
we  had  displayed  in  our  recent  war  and  of  the  sudden 
and  complete  peace  that  had  followed.  He  spoke  of 
the  difficult  position  [of  the]  President  and  compli 
mented  him  highly  on  his  'energy  and  courageous 
consistency/  The  ball  was  given  last  night  in  my 
opinion  to  afford  the  Imperial  family  and  the  great 
officers  of  the  Empire  a  valid  excuse  for  absenting 
themselves  from  the  ceremonies  of  the  silver  wed 
ding  of  the  King  of  Hanover,  which  took  place  at 
the  same  time,  with  great  eclat  in  the  Kursalon.  .  .  . 
The  occasion  has  been  awaited  for  some  time,  not 
without  uneasiness,  as  it  was  thought  not  improb 
able  that  the  dispossessed  King  might  indulge  in  a 


298  JOHN   HAY 

demonstration  that  would  seriously  compromise  his 
position  with  the  courts  both  in  Vienna  and  Berlin. 
But  no  one  could  have  imagined  that  his  reckless 
anger  and  vanity  would  lead  him  so  far.  He  made 
a  speech  of  the  most  violent  character,  in  direct 
contravention  of  all  the  recent  treaties  made  with 
him  at  such  enormous  cost  by  the  Government  of 
Prussia,  and  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  propriety 
which  should  have  restrained  him  as  the  guest  of 
Austria. 

"  It  is  generally  considered  something  more  than  a 
coincidence  that  Mr.  de  Bismarck  yesterday  de 
clared  that  if  the  Hanoverian  intrigues  were  not 
speedily  discontinued,  the  severest  measures  of  se 
questration  would  immediately  be  put  in  force.  It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether,  even  yet,  the  King  of 
Prussia  can  be  persuaded  from  his  rigid  adherence 
to  the  dogma  of  divine  right,  to  allow  justice  to  be 
done  to  an  avowed  public  enemy." 

"April  22.  Post  came  in  and  while  we  were  talk 
ing  artillery  began.  He  could  n't  keep  still,  so  we 
went  out  and  saw  a  neat  little  review  in  the  Parade 
Platz.  I  thought  it  was  the  Imperial  Baby,  but  was 
wrong;  for  to-day  100  guns  thundered  the  glad  tid 
ings  to  Austria  that  they  had  another  omnivorous 
Hapsburg  to  provide  for." 

Of  one  other  celebrity,  Prince  Napoleon,  familiarly 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      299 

known  to  his  contemporaries  by  his  nickname  "  Plon- 
Plon,"  Hay  speaks. 

"June  7,  1868.  I  went  over  to  the  Golden  Lamb, 
Leopoldstadt,  about  i  o'clock.  I  was  received,  I  be 
lieve,  by  Col.  Ragon.  Count  Zichy  was  in  the  ante 
chamber  with  the  Colonel.  Heckern  came  in  before 
long.  He  introduced  me  and  Zichy .  We  talked  a  good 
while  till  Werther  (Prussian)  who  was  with  the  Prince 
came  out  and  Zichy  went  in.  Heckern  began  girding 
at  Werther  about  the  supposed  treaties  and  intrigues 
he  had  cooked  up  with  the  Prince.  Werther,  to  es 
cape  persecution,  turned  to  me  and  talked  impeach 
ment.  Zichy  made  a  long  stay.  Ferri-Pisani  came 
in.  At  last  Zichy  emerged  and  I  went  in.  The  Prince 
received  me  in  a  pleasant  offhand  way  and  we  began 
at  once  to  talk  about  America  and  his  visit  there. 
He  remembered  most  of  the  names  now  prominent 
in  politics.  He  spoke  of  Seward  —  said  he  ought  to 
have  prevented  the  President's  trip  to  Chicago.  Said 
he  remembered  Colfax,  a  young  blackfaced  man  — 
President  of  the  Legislative  Body  —  he  meant  Grow. 
He  spoke  of  Stanton  as  a  man  of  great  merit  and 
deplored  his  leaving  the  War  Office,  but  remembered 
Schofield  and  was  much  pleased  with  what  he  saw 
of  him.  After  a-few  words  about  Germany,  and  the 
interesting  moment  in  which  he  visits  it,  the  inter 
view  ended  by  my  retiring. " 


300  JOHN  HAY 

Although  the  fame  of  actors  and  singers  is  often 
more  fleeting  than  that  of  grandees  and  politicians, 
the  following  notes  are  interesting,  if  only  as  regis 
ters  of  John  Hay's  taste  at  the  time  he  wrote  them. 

"September  u,  1867.  Heard  to-night  Minna  von 
Barnhelm  at  the  Burg.  It  was  well  played  by  Son- 
nenthal,  whom  the  ladies  love  because  of  his  good 
legs ;  by  La  Roche,  who  is  said  to  be  a  son  of  Goethe 
and  who  really  resembles  him  strikingly ;  by  Meixner 
and  Schone.  Either  a  majority  of  the  audience  un 
derstood  French,  or  they  were  well  bred  enough  to 
seem  to,  for  in  the  long  scene  between  Minna  and 
Riccaut  de  la  Marliniere  they  listened  with  the  same 
quiet  attention  which  they  always  give  to  the  play. 
The  women  were  Bognar  and  Schneeberger  —  the 
former  good  but  gaspy,  and  the  latter  first  rate. 
Baumeister  was  excellent  as  the  Wachtmeister.  .  .  . 
There  is  too  much  talk  in  the  German  plays  to  suit 


us/' 


A  few  days  later  Hay  saw  King  Lear  at  the  Burg 
Theatre.  "  A  general  dead  level  of  respectable  acting 
that  was  very  dreary  in  effect,"  is  his  criticism.  "I 
remembered  Forrest's  storms  and  tempests  of  pas 
sion  —  often  overdone,  sometimes  in  bad  taste,  but 
always  full  of  wonderful  spirit  and  inexhaustible 
physical  energy;  and  the  careful  and  somewhat 
lachrymose  style  of  Wagner  suffered  very  much  by 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA      301 

comparison.  Then  Schlegel's  text,  though  very  cor 
rect  and  scholarly,  is  not  Shakespeare.  There  is  not 
a  word  of  Shakespeare  that  can  well  be  altered  now. 
The  blast  of  his  mighty  thought,  sweeping  through 
his  words  for  three  centuries,  has  attuned  them  to 
an  immortal  and  perfect  harmony.  I  was  very  curi 
ous  to  see  Shakespeare  in  German.  It  is  certainly 
very  fine.  But  I  shall  not  go  often." 

Of  the  nobles,  Hay  had  a  poor  opinion.  "Litera 
ture  is  considered  here  rather  a  low  business,"  he 
says.  "  If  a  noble  is  clever  and  can  write  verses,  he 
is  very  proud  of  it,  but  as  a  gentleman  is  proud  of 
being  able  to  dance  a  clog  dance  or  play  the  banjo 
well.  So  they  never  put  their  names  to  their  poems, 
but  have  a  literary  name,  which  is  kept  rigidly  dis 
tinct  from  the  one  that  bears  sixteen  quarterings. 
Count  Anton  Auersperg  is  Anastasius  Griin,  Baron 
Munch-Bellinghausen  is  Fried  Hahn." 

A  little  later  he  writes:  "The  Great  Princes  here 
speak  very  bad  German  —  like  '  Fiaker.1  They  learn 
in  their  youth  nothing  but  French,  dogs,  horses, 
women.  They  are  embarrassed  when  they  meet  with 
cultivated  men,  and  so  avoid  'mixed  society/  To 
gether,  they  are  all  alike."  Hay  tells  of  one  eccen 
tric  person,  Henikstein,  who  "  took  me  in  and  showed 
me  his  cofHn  and  the  skeletons  of  his  friends.  One  of 
a  woman,  lune  bonne  amie  a  moi*  whom  he  chucked 


302  JOHN  HAY 

under  the  chin  and  made  the  bony  head  wag  and  grin 
in  the  candlelight,  and  the  teeth  rattle.  A  music 
box  played  dirges.  Hatchments  hung  all  around 
dated  186-." 

A  glimpse  of  the  Court  is  given  in  this  memoran 
dum:  "  To-day  (December  30)  Countess  Konigsegg 
received  for  the  Empress  at  the  Burg.  A  small,  richly 
furnished  room.  Men  and  ladies  in  brilliant  uni 
forms,  and  the  richest  and  most  eclatant  satins, 
coming  and  going.  The  brilliancy  of  colors  was  sug 
gestive  of  ophthalmia.  In  the  evening,  drove  out 
to  the  Augustan,  where  Prince  Hohenlohe  was  re 
ceiving  for  the  Emperor.  Along  the  avenue  to  the 
Pavilion,  pine- wood  torches  gave  a  glaring  light. 
Inside  the  door  of  the  vestibule  was  ranged  a  semi 
circle  of  some  dozens  of  splendidly  dressed  menials, 
with  heads  powdered  as  if  by  a  passing  snowstorm, 
to  head  off  the  unwary  from  improper  stairs  and 
force  them  into  the  broad  way  that  led  in  to  Hohen 
lohe.  He  is  a  youngish,  stiffish,  very  pleasant-spoken 
man,  baldish  on  the  bump  of  firmness.  Esterhazy 
was  there,  with  the  handsome  clothes,  gallant  bear 
ing  and  feeble  face  you  would  expect  from  an  old 
youth  who  has  squandered  all  of  his  estates  that  he 


can." 


Hay  had  few  occasions  for  sending  official  des 
patches  to  the  Stater  Department,  but  he  always  en- 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      303 

riched  them  with  information  and  comment  which 
must  have  rejoiced  Mr.  Seward;  for  it  was  rare  then, 
in  America,  to  get  authentic  news  of  the  Austrian 
crises.  I  quote  a  single  passage  from  one  of  the  des 
patches,  because,  although  it  is  dated  February  5, 
1868,  it  is  still  fresh,  and  it  shows  how  early  Hay 
adopted  that  gospel  of  Peace  which,  when  he  came 
to  be  Secretary  of  State,  he  labored  to  spread 
throughout  the  world. 

"The  great  calamity  and  danger  of  Europe  to 
day,"  he  writes  Secretary  Seward,  "are  these  enor 
mous  armaments.  No  honest  statesman  can  say 
that  he  sees  in  the  present  attitude  of  politics  the 
necessity  of  war.  No  great  Power  is  threatened. 
There  is  no  menace  to  peace  that  could  not  be  im 
mediately  dispelled  by  a  firm  protest  of  the  peace 
fully  disposed  majority  of  nations.  There  would  be, 
therefore,  no  danger  to  any  people,  but  a  vast  and 
immediate  gain  to  all  from  a  general  disarmament. 
It  need  not  be  simultaneous.  It  is  idle  to  say  that 
France  fears  an  invasion  from  Prussia  or  Prussia 
from  France,  and  an  honest  understanding  among 
the  Western  nations  would  keep  the  peace  from  the 
Eastern  side. 

"Why  then  is  this  awful  waste  of  youth  and  treas 
ure  continued?  I  believe  from  no  other  motive  than 
to  sustain  the  waning  prestige  of  Kings.  Armies  are 


304  JOHN   HAY 

to-day  only  useful  in  Europe  to  overcome  the  people 
in  peace,  or  by  groundless  wars  to  divert  their  atten 
tion  from  domestic  misrule.  With  the  disappear 
ance  of  great  armies,  the  welfare  of  the  people  would 
become  the  only  mainspring  of  national  action,  and 
that  false  and  wicked  equilibrium  by  which  now  the 
interests  of  one  man  weigh  as  heavily  as  those  of 
millions  of  his  fellow  creatures,  would  be  utterly 
destroyed." 

Hay  watched  intently  the  struggle  of  Austrian 
Liberals  to  free  themselves  from  the  Clerical  control 
that  threatened  strangulation. 

"The  Church  is  enormously  rich/'  he  writes,  "and 
has  thus  far  succeeded  in  retaining  its  vast  posses 
sions  free  from  the  requisitions  of  the  sorely  pressed 
and  almost  bankrupt  government.  In  Vienna  nearly 
every  one  of  the  great  religious  orders  are  still  in 
full  possession  of  the  vast  estates  acquired  by  their 
predecessors  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Schottenhof, 
a  reminiscence  of  the  Scotch  Benedictines  of  the 
twelfth  century,  the  Molkenhof  and  others  are  little 
cities  of  themselves.  The  Liberals,  there  are  a  few 
Liberals  here,  are  very  bitter  upon  this  non-pro 
ducing  and  all-consuming  body." 

"It  would  be  disastrous,"  he  says  a  little  later, 
"if  the  Church  should  have  the  wit  to  take  advan 
tage  of  this  juncture  to  lay  upon  themselves  a  free 


THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      305 

tax,  and  trade  the  sums  thus  easily  raised  against  a 
re-affirmation  of  the  Concordat.  The  existence  of 
this  incubus  is  now  seriously  menaced.  It  is  improb 
able  that  it  can  much  longer  continue  to  oppress  and 
crush  the  life  of  this  nation.  The  Church  is  making 
frantic  efforts  to  save  it.  ...  The  toothless  old  giant 
that  Bunyan  set  away  out  of  the  active  field  of  fight 
two  centuries  ago,  has  still  wit  enough  to  make  the 
proudest  monarchy  of  earth  hew  his  wood  and  draw 
his  water.'* 

We  are  not  concerned  to  follow  the  course  of  this 
conflict  between  Church  and  State,  in  which  the 
State  finally  gained  a  slight  advantage;  but  we  can  be 
amused,  as  Hay  was,  at  the  reactionary  party,  who, 
when  there  was  a  popular  rejoicing  over  the  passage 
of  a  favorable  vote  in  the  House  of  Peers,  "were  furi 
ous  and  either  silly  or  malicious  enough  to  telegraph 
the  Emperor  that  a  revolutionary  entente  was  in 
progress.  They  scared  the  Archduchess'  mother  out 
of  bed,  and  Aristocracy  in  general  sat  and  shivered 
in  its  nightshirt  until  the  crowd,  tired  with  its  loyal 
jubilee,  went  home  to  bed." 

Having  plenty  of  leisure  Hay  went  on  several 
journeys.  He  "poked  round  Poland,  lonesomely 
enough,  but  fully  compensated  by  the  unusual  and 
peculiar  towns  [he]  passed  through."  He  found  War 
saw  "a  very  respectable  place,"  with  two  theaters 


306  JOHN  HAY 

and  a  fair  opera.  "  Cracow  was  the  quaintest  and 
most  entirely  satisfactory  little  town  [he]  ever  saw. 
It  has  only  40,000  inhabitants,  but  it  has  a  cathedral 
and  theatre,  (where  [he]  heard  a  very  fair  burlesque), 
and  a  regular  mediaeval  Jews'  Quarter." 

Late  in  the  autumn,  he  made  a  flying  visit  to 
Turkey. 

The  pocketbook  in  which  he  jotted  down  hour  by 
hour  the  sights  which  most  impressed  him  on  this 
trip  shows  how  keenly  and  also  how  independently, 
he  observed.  He  does  not  record  the  ordinary  things, 
or  give  rein  to  moralizing  and  emotions.  He  makes, 
rather,  a  skeleton  from  which  he  might  afterwards 
develop  a  well-rounded,  graphic  picture.  As  usual, 
he  puts  in  bits  of  landscape.  Here,  for  instance,  are 
glimpses  on  the  Danube. 

"Wild  and  superb  scenery  to  Orsova.  Red  sand 
stone  hills  by  Greben.  The  lake.  The  Pass  of  Kazan. 
Long  before  we  came  to  it  we  could  see  the  dense 
veil  of  vapor  behind  the  hills.  A  sheer  granite  rock 
on  the  left  of  the  Greben  Lake  like  the  Schreckhorn. 
As  we  entered  the  pass  a  wild  storm  of  rain  and  wind 
came  howling  through :  the  rain  whirling  like  a  volley 
of  bullets.  Nature  making  a  last  desperate  stand. 
The  cliffs  rising  higher  and  higher,  till  the  last  one 
sprang  sheer  2000  feet,  its  head  buried  in  the  tattered 
clouds.  Just  beyond  a  tranquil  collapse.  Here  is 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA       307 

most  plainly  seen  the  remains  of  Trajan's  road. 
Not  only  the  mortise  holes  but  a  portion  of  the  gal 
lery  itself  hollowed  in  the  rock  exists/7  (November 
9,  1867.) 

At  Constantinople,  he  wrote  in  more  detail,  prob 
ably  with  the  purpose  of  working  up  his  notes  into 
an  article.  After  landing  at  Galata  in  the  forenoon, 
arid  getting  quarters  at  the  Hotel  de  Byzance  on 
the  Pera  hill,  he  and  his  companions-  -  "An  Ameri 
can,"  named  Whittlesey,  "and  a  young  Bostonian, 
a  Quincy"  -  prepare  for  sight-seeing. 

"Dress  and  go  to  the  Whirling  Dervishes.  Enter 
a  pleasant  walled  place.  Pass  into  a  light  anteroom 
where  you  put  on  overshoes.  Go  through  a  door 
hung  with  a  heavy  and  thick  curtain  into  a  circular 
room.  Green  pillars.  To  the  right,  Christians:  left, 
Turks.  Galleries  above.  Ladies'  gallery  —  grated, 
and  painted  with  trees  and  shrubs,  all  slanted  to 
Mecca.  The  Dervishes  all  standing  around  the  cir 
cumference  of  the  circle.  The  old  sheik  enters.  They 
bow  profoundly.  He  sits  down,  kneels,  and  the  pray 
ing  begins.  He  mumbles  and  mutters  and  in  the  gal 
lery  over  the  entrance  another  sings  the  responses  in 
a  nasal  twang.  The  whole  body  rise  and  go  to  the 
centre  of  the  room  and  fall  on  their  knees.  They 
heave  and  sit,  rising  and  kissing  the  floor  in  time 
to  the  singing.  After  the  prayer  is  finished  they  go 


308  JOHN  HAY 

back  to  the  place  around  the  circumference  and  the 
old  fellow  in  the  choir  sings  a  long  solo.  After  a  mo 
ment  of  silence  the  orchestra  begins  a  subtle  dizzy 
ing  sound  of  wind  and  wood  instruments.  This  con 
tinues  some  time,  buzzing,  sultry.  Then  the  old 
sheik  rises  and  starts  around  the  room  and  the  rest 
follow,  all  bowing  to  the  mat  he  has  been  sitting  on. 
Their  costumes  are  exactly  the  same  in  cut,  differ  in 
color.  The  old  sheik  and  his  boy  are  green;  the 
second  sheik  and  his  boy  are  brown.  They  go  around 
three  times.  Then  the  sheik  stands  still  and  the 
whole  party  range  themselves  again  in  the  circum 
ference;  throw  off  their  cloaks.  The  music  becomes 
a  shriller,  louder  music  of  drums  and  flutes,  and  the 
dervishes  cross  arms  over  chest,  the  hands  resting 
on  the  shoulders,  and  march  by  the  sheik.  As  they 
pass  him  they  begin  whirling,  at  first  slowly  and 
then  faster,  throwing  out  their  arms,  very  regularly, 
their  dresses  widening  downwards.  Garibaldi  and 
morning  (?)  dress  of  young  ladies  of  to-day.  Con 
centric  circles.  Looking  over  shoulders.  Different 
types.  .  .  .  Turk  in  the  corner,  fervent  piety.  Cath 
olic  Turks  telling  their  beads  during  the  perform 
ance.  Foreigners.  .  .  ." 

On  another  day  the  party  crossed  the  Bosphorus, 
visited  Scutari,  climbed  Mount  Boulgourlou  on 
stallions,  enjoyed  the  magnificent  view,  and  on  their 


THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  VIENNA       309 

return  saw  a  performance  of  the  Howling  Dervishes. 
Hay  describes  them  almost  as  minutely  as  he  did  the 
Whirlers. 

"The  Dervishes  enter  barefoot  this  time.  Sitting 
in  a  circle  singing.  Sheik  praying.  As  each  one  en 
tered,  kissed  his  hand.  After  a  while  they  rise,  and 
begin  singing  and  swaying.  This  continues  an  hour. 
The  motion  and  the  time  change,  becoming  always 
more  rapid.  The  performers  form  a  straight  line 
across  the  end  of  the  room.  Two  rows  of  older  fel 
lows  sit  cross-legged  in  the  middle  of  the  room  to 
keep  up  the  shrill  singing.  Reel  and  put  on  night 
caps.  Violent,  brutal  excitement.  The  negro,  clap 
ping  hands,  wiping  face,  growls. 

"Green  and  yellow  child  among  the  performers. 
The  sick  children.  Very  heavily  clothed.  Very  much 
like  a  negro  shout.  Instruments  of  torture  about  the 
room.  Not  now  used.  Bad  fame  of  the  Dervishes. 
Great  influence.  Lay  brothers.  Old  sheik  of  a  great 
family." 

Hay  and  his  companions  sailed  from  Constanti 
nople  to  Trieste  by  an  Austrian  Lloyd  steamer.  As 
it  steered  westward  Hay  "watched  the  matchless 
view  of  the  city,  cut  off  by  the  Golden  Horn  Pro 
montory.  The  reason  why  this  view  is  so  famous,  he 
discovers,  is  that  as  you  look  back  St.  Sophia  and 
the  Mosque  of  Achmet,  with  their  many  minarets, 


3io  JOHN   HAY 

are  fused  into  one.  Soon  Olympus  looms  up,  and 
"velvet  hills."  Then,  the  magic  passage  through  the 
^Egean,  among  islands  which  live  in  memory  as 
colors  —  pearl,  opal,  sapphire,  amethyst.  At  Corfu, 
Hay  went  ashore  and  spent  several  enchanted  hours. 
"The  water,"  he  remarks,  "has  the  same  delicate 
green  as  the  Stamboul,  if  seen  directly,  blue,  if  seen 
obliquely."  He  stayed  long  enough  at  Trieste  to  see 
the  city,  and  to  exchange  calls  with  the  eccentric 
American  Consul,  Alexander  Thayer,  the  biographer 
of  Beethoven.  After  running  into  a  snow-storm  on 
the  Semmering,  he  reached  Vienna  in  the  evening 
of  November  23. 

Writing  to  Nicolay  while  his  impressions  were 
still  vivid,  he  sums  them  up  in  a  few  lines:  - 

"A  magnificent  day  on  the  Danube  to  Orsova, 
and  another  to  Rustchuck  —  over  the  railway  all  day 
to  Varna  —  and  by  breakfast  time  the  next  morning 
we  were  staring  with  delight  of  greenhorns  at  the 
unparalleled  spectacle  that  greets  you  as  you  sail 
down  the  Bosphorus  into  Constantinople.  That 
closes  for  me  in  this  world,  I  verily  believe,  my  sensa 
tions  of  great  cities.  The  last  is  infinitely  finer  than 
anything  I  ever  imagined.  I  am  pretty  sure  there  is 
nothing  that  approaches  it  on  earth.  We  had  perfect 
weather  —  June  at  its  prettiest  in  Illinois,  for  in 
stance  —  and  this  staid  with  us  all  the  time.  We 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA       311 

passed  a  day  in  Asia  and  climbed  Mt.  Boulgourlou 
and  saw  the  gates  of  the  morning.  We  had  great 
larks,  which  I  have  not  time  to  write/' 

In  March,  he  had  a  glimpse  of  Italy,  and  wished 
to  go  up  the  Nile;  but  time,  and  perhaps  money  fell 
short;  for  his  salary  as  Charge  at  Vienna  was  not 
lavish. 

By  the  spring  of  1868,  Hay  began  to  think  of 
turning  homewards.  The  State  Department  was 
slow  in  appointing  a  minister.  It  offered  the  office 
to  Horace  Greeley,  who  declined,  thus  depriving  the 
world  of  a  unique  sight  —  the  editor  of  the  Tribune 
among  the  archduchesses  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg. 
Finally,  Henry  M.  Watts,  a  Pennsylvanian,  accepted 
the  post,  the  first  article  of  Pennsylvanian  patriot 
ism  being,  "Thou  shalt  decline  no  office."  On  Au 
gust  12,  1868,  just  a  year  from  the  date  of  his  arrival 
in  Vienna,  Hay  resigned. 

Some  time  before  he  retired,  he  sent  his  former 
chief,  John  Bigelow,  the  following  letter,  which,  be 
tween  its  banter  and  seriousness,  serves  as  a  charm 
ing  bit  of  autobiography :  — 

To  John  Bigelow 

April  27,  1868 

I  had  no  idea  when  I  came  abroad  last  summer 
that  I  should  be  here  so  long.  I  thought  they  would 


312  JOHN  HAY 

fix  up  the  vacuum  (abhorred  of  nature  and  office- 
seekers)  in  a  few  months  —  so  I  came  for  a  flyer, 
principally  because  I  was  a  little  ashamed  of  having 
been  in  Europe  nearly  two  years  and  having  seen 
nothing.  I  have  had  a  pleasant  year  of  it.  There  is 
very  little  work  to  do  at  the  Legation.  I  have  sinned 
grievously  against  certain  ten-day  regulations  that 
I  have  heard  of.  I  have  seen  all  I  care  to  of  Prussia, 
Poland,  Turkey,  and  Italy.  I  have  drawn  my  salary 
with  startling  punctuality.  I  have  not  wearied  the 
home  office  with  much  despatches.  My  sleep  is  in 
fantine  and  my  appetite  wolfish. 

I  am  satisfied  with  my  administration  of  this 
'arduous  and  delicate  post.'  I  believe  that  is  the 
regular  shriek  of  the  Radical  Press  in  alluding  to  the 
Vienna  Mission.  You  and  Mr.  Adams  worked  while 
you  were  in  harness.  I  am  not  sure  but  that  a  serious 
man  could  always  find  work  in  either  of  those  two 
missions.  But  equally  sure  am  I  that  no  two  other 
American  diplomats  can  catch  each  other's  eyes 
without  mutual  guffaws,  unless  they  have  a  power 
of  facial  muscle  that  would  put  the  Roman  augurs 
to  shame.  Just  let  me  get  into  Congress  once,  and 
take  one  shy  at  the  Diplomatic  Appropriation  Bill. 

I  am  very  glad  I  came.  Vienna  is  worth  while 
for  a  year.  It  is  curious  and  instructive  to  see  their 
people  starting  off  in  the  awkward  walk  of  political 


THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  — VIENNA      313 

babyhood.  They  know  what  they  want,  and  I  be 
lieve  they  will  get  it.  The  Aristocracy  is  furious,  and 
the  Kaiser  a  little  bewildered  at  every  new  triumph 
of  the  Democratic  and  liberal  principle.  But  I  don't 
think  they  can  stop  the  machine  now  -  -  though 
they  may  get  their  fingers  mashed  in  the  cogs.  I 
don't  think  the  world  ever  seemed  getting  ahead  so 
positively  and  quietly  before.  Two  years  ago  — 
it  was  another  Europe.  England  has  come  abreast 
of  Bright.  Austria  is  governed  by  Forty-Eighters. 
Bismarck  is  becoming  appalled  by  the  spirit  of  Free 
dom  that  he  suckled  with  the  blood  of  Sadowa. 
France  still  lies  in  her  comatose  slumber  —  but  she 
talks  in  her  sleep  and  murmurs  the  Marseillaise. 
And  God  has  made  her  ruler  blind  drunk,  that  his 
Helot  antics  may  disgust  the  world  with  despotism. 
If  ever,  in  my  green  and  salad  days,  I  sometimes 
vaguely  doubted,  I  am  safe  now.  I  am  a  Republican 
till  I  die.  When  we  get  to  Heaven,  we  can  try  a 
Monarchy,  perhaps. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN 

AT  the  end  of  October,  1868,  Hay  sailed  for  the 
second  time  into  New  York  Harbor,  with  a 
larger  fund  of  experience  in  his  head,  but  with  his 
purse  no  richer  and  his  prospects  no  brighter.  Dur 
ing  much  of  his  stay  in  Vienna  his  health  had  been 
bad,  a  reason  for  his  wishing  to  come  home.  Few  rec 
ords  remain  of  the  ensuing  months.  Presumably,  he 
visited  Washington,  to  see  whether  under  the  new 
administration  —  Grant  was  elected  President  in 
November — he  might  find  employment.  Neither 
then,  nor  later,  was  Hay  a  professed  office-seeker. 
He  never  had  the  art  of  making  those  in  power  take 
his  talents  at  their  real  worth  —  much  less,  at  more 
than  their  worth,  which  is  the  secret  of  many  place 
holders.  An  innate  refinement,  coupled  with  shyness, 
and  an  abiding  personal  dignity,  kept  him  from  the 
suppliant's  posture.  He  took  it  for  granted  that,  as 
he  was  sufficiently  well  known  by  the  leaders  at 
Washington,  they  would  summon  him  if  they  wanted 
him. 

Perhaps  he  was  promised  another  diplomatic  bil 
let,  in  the  overturn  which,  according  to  happy  cus- 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN      315 

torn,  would  begin  as  soon  as  the  new  President  was 
inaugurated.  Meanwhile,  Hay  went  to  Illinois,  saw 
his  relatives,  looked  after  his  tenants,  and  applied 
himself  in  earnest  to  literary  work.  Lecturing  was 
still,  although  the  prestige  of  the  lyceum  was  waning, 
a  profitable  profession  for  those  who  caught  the  fancy 
of  the  public.  Hay  had  long  looked  upon  this  as  a 
possible  resource  and  he  now  tested  it.  On  January 
27,  1869,  before  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso 
ciation  of  Buffalo,  he  delivered  a  lecture  on  "The 
Progress  of  Democracy  in  Europe."  "Had  a  fair 
house  —  very  attentive  and  good-natured  audi 
ence,"  he  notes  in  his  Diary.  "Was  reasonably 
successful  —  especially  pleased  at  the  absence  of 
trepidation  and  duration  of  my  voice."  Writing  to 
Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  a  few  days  later  he 
adds:  "I  have  tried  an  experiment  since  I  saw  you 
last.  I  have  faced  a  large  audience  and  spoken  a 
piece  without  breaking  down.  I  lectured  in  Buffalo 
and  in  a  few  Western  towns.  I  will  do  more  of  it 
next  winter." 

He  closes  his  letter  to  Stedman  with  the  following 
hint:  "  I  hope  to  see  you  later  in  the  spring.  I  shall 
pass  through  New  York  on  my  way  to  Europe.  I  left 
some  unravelled  threads  of  occupation  over  there, 
and  must  go  over  once  more  —  my  own  master  now 
—  and  pick  them  up." 


316  JOHN  HAY 

The  " unravelled  threads"  proved  to  be  his  ap 
pointment  as  first  Secretary  of  Legation  at  Madrid. 
On  July  29,  being  already  at  his  post,  he  jots  down 
this  memorandum:  "Drew  on  Barings  for  $146.66 
for  month  of  transit." 

Hay's  diplomatic  service  in  Spain  fell  during  a 
dramatic  crisis.  The  profligate  queen,  Isabella  II. 
had  been  expelled.  Republicans  of  various  shades 
were  hoping  for  a  republic.  Liberal  Conservatives 
worked  for  a  monarchy,  which  the  Liberals  among 
them  wished  to  make  constitutional,  while  the  Cler 
icals  intrigued  to  restore  the  old  absolutism  in  which 
they  throve.  Marshal  Serrano  was  provisional  re 
gent.  Hay  came  just  in  time  to  witness  the  contest, 
and  so  strongly  did  he  sympathize  with  the  Repub 
licans  that  he  must  have  found  it  hard  to  keep  up 
the  feint  of  diplomatic  impartiality. 

The  duties  of  his  office  consumed  much  of  his  time. 
The  Minister,  General  Daniel  E.  Sickles,  was  one  of 
the  typical  wastrels  who  succeeded,  partly  by  rough 
capacity  and  partly  by  truculence,  in  pushing  their 
way  to  the  front  during  the  Civil  War.  Dissolute  in 
his  personal  habits,  loose  in  money  matters,  and 
unscrupulous  in  his  methods,  he  rose  to  the  com 
mand  of  the  Third  Corps  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  and,  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  he  stationed 
his  troops,  without  orders,  in  a  position  which 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN     317 

brought  disaster  upon  them  and  threatened  the  de 
feat  of  the  Union  army.  Fortunately  for  Sickles,  he 
had  a  leg  shot  off  in  the  battle  —  luck  which  pre 
vented  his  being  court-martialed,  and  enabled  him 
to  pose  during  half  a  century  as  the  hero  of  Gettys 
burg.  No  bullet  was  ever  more  beneficent  to  its  vic 
tim  than  that  which  crippled  him.  At  Madrid  Hay 
seems  to  have  found  him  an  unexacting  chief. 

The  Secretary  applied  himself  to  learning  Spanish ; 
but  before  he  attained  fluency  in  that,  his  knowledge 
of  French  opened  many  official  doors.  He  watched 
the  political  crisis  with  intense  interest.  In  Paris  he 
had  seen  the  growing  restlessness  of  Liberals  under 
the  Imperial  despotism;  in  Vienna,  he  saw  a  consti 
tutional  monarchy  emerge  from  an  autocracy;  and 
now  in  Madrid  he  hoped  that  his  ideal,  the  Republic, 
would  spring  into  vigorous  being. 

A  group  of  statesmen,  who  would  have  been  re 
markable  in  any  country,  carried  on  the  struggle  for 
ascendancy  in  Spain.  Foremost  among  them  was 
Castelar,  whose  reputation  as  the  advocate  of  Re 
publicanism  had  crossed  the  Atlantic.  Next,  ranked 
Prim,  "a  soldier,  conspirator,  diplomatist,  and  born 
ruler;  a  Cromwell  without  convictions;  a  dictator 
who  hides  his  power;  a  Warwick,  who  mars  Kings 
as  tranquilly  as  he  makes  them  " ;  Serrano,  the  regent, 
dignified  and  conciliatory;  Sagasta,  still  at  the  half- 


318  JOHN   HAY 

way  stage  between  politician  and  statesman;  Silvela, 
Ccinovas  del  Castillo :  these  were  leaders  whom  Hay 
studied  as  eagerly  as  a  zoologist  studies  a  strange 
fauna.  Something  in  his  temperament  —  his  love 
of  color,  perhaps  —  caused  him  to  understand  and 
enjoy  their  passionate  oratory.  For  Castelar  he  had 
a  profound  admiration. 

Hay  seldom  missed  an  important  debate.  The 
Cortes,  he  writes  on  October  i,  1869,  "  resumed  their 
session  to-day  after  a  vacation  of  some  months.  The 
Diplomatic  Body  have  a  little  cage  holding  fifteen. 
We  have  three  cards  and  one  I  stole.  The  seats  all 
vacant  in  the  hall.  The  President  comes  in  in  solemn 
procession  with  the  maceros  and  secretaries.  The 
maceros  dressed  out  of  Froissart.  Rivero  wears  white 
kids  during  the  whole  session.  His  opening  speech. 
Figueras  replies.  Figuerola,  Orense,  and  Castelar 
sitting  together  on  the  top  bench  of  the  Extreme 
Left.  Figueras,  a  Western  Senator  sort  of  man  in 
build  and  carriage,  with  a  wonderful  aptitude  of 
speech  and  good  knowledge  of  parliamentary  prac 
tice.  Orense,  the  noble  factor  of  the  play.  Rivero 
scolds  the  Deputies  like  a  schoolmaster,  knocking 
them  over  the  knuckles  without  merci  or  miseri- 
cordia.  The  Government  sits  on  a  bench  distin 
guished  from  the  rest  by  being  in  blue  velvet  instead 
of  crimson.  Out  of  304  Deputies,  not  more  than  100 


THE   ROVING   DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN     319 

present.  The  afternoon  sun  pouring  in  through  the 
window  facing  the  West.  Lighting  up.  The  maceros 
relieving  each  other.  Not  many  nobles." 

The  next  day  Hay  went  to  see  Castelar.  "Found 
him  at  his  own  door,  coming  home  with  his  hands 
full  of  documents.  Walked  up  with  him  —  and  had 
a  long  talk  about  everything.  He  speaks  French 
fluently  —  learned  it  in  exile  in  Paris,  where  he  sup 
ported  himself  and  many  others  by  writing  for  South 
American  papers.  He  has  an  exquisite  face  —  a  soft, 
sweet  tenor  voice,  a  winning,  and  what  the  Spaniards 
call  simpatico,  manner. 

"He  spoke  of  Napoleon's  sickness  and  of  the  hu 
miliating  spectacle  of  a  great  nation  looking  for  its 
destiny  in  the  cuvette  of  an  old  man.  We  talked  a  good 
deal  of  art  and  Italy.  Of  Spain  he  spoke  sadly;  he 
seemed  to  feel  that  the  insurrection  in  Catalonia 
was  premature  and  ill-advised.  He  thought  there 
were  evil  days  coming  for  the  Republicans  in  Mad 
rid.  He  said, '  We  have  just  had  a  hard  hour's  work 
to  persuade  the  party  of  action  not  to  precipitate  an 
insurrection  to-night.  This  would  be  madness.  Mad 
rid  is  thoroughly  monarchical.  It  is  a  city  of  place 
holders.  The  militia  is  in  great  majority  monarchical. 
There  are  10,000  or  12,000  regular  troops  here.  An 
insurrection  would  be  smothered  in  blood.  Yet  it  is 
hard  to  keep  the  fiery  young  fellows  from  trying  it.' " 


320  JOHN  HAY 

Of  Castelar's  manner  as  an  orator,  Hay  gives  this 
glowing  description :  — 

"Oct.  j,  Sunday.  The  discussion  to-day  on  the 
Suspension  of  Guarantees  occupied  all  the  afternoon 
and  will  be  continued  to-morrow. 

"Castelar  was  superb.  His  action  is  something 
marvellous.  He  uses  more  gesticulation  than  any 
orator  or  actor  I  have  ever  heard.  His  voice  is,  as  I 
suspected,  rather  rich  and  musical  than  strong,  and 
he  uses  it  so  remorselessly  that  it  is  apt  to  suffer  in  an 
hour  or  so.  But  his  matter  is  finer  than  his  manner. 
I  have  never  imagined  the  possibility  of  such  fluency 
of  speech.  Never  for  one  instant  is  the  wonderful 
current  of  declamation  checked  by  the  pauses,  the 
hesitations,  the  deliberations  that  mark  all  Anglo- 
Saxon  debate.  His  whole  speech  is  delivered  with  pre 
cisely  the  energy  and  fluency  that  Forrest  exhibits 
in  the  most  rapid  passages  of  his  most  muscular 
plays;  and  when  you  consider  that  not  a  word  of 
this  is  written  or  prepared,  but  struck  off  instantly 
in  the  very  heat  and  spasms  of  utterance,  it  seems 
little  short  of  miraculous.  The  most  laborious  con 
ning  and  weighing  and  filing  of  the  most  fastidious 
rhetorician  could  not  produce  phrases  of  more  ex 
quisite  harmony,  antitheses  more  sharp  and  brilliant, 
metaphors  more  perfectly  fitting  —  all  uttered  with 
a  feverish  rapidity  that  makes  the  despair  of  stenog- 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN     321 

raphers.  Then  his  logic  is  as  faultless  as  his  rhetoric. 
He  never  says  a  foolish  or  careless  word.  All  history 
is  at  his  finger's  ends.  There  is  no  fact  too  insignifi 
cant  for  his  memory  —  none  too  stale  to  do  service. 
They  are  all  presented  with  such  felicity  and  grace 
too,  that  you  scarcely  see  how  solid  they  are." 

Again  and  again  Hay  returns  to  enthusiastic  praise 
of  Castelar.  "  His  action  is  as  violent  as  Forrest, "  he 
writes  Nicolay.  "  His  style  is  as  florid  as  Gibbon.  .  .  . 
He  never  writes  a  speech.  Yet  every  sentence,  even 
in  a  running  debate,  when  all  the  government  hounds 
are  yelping  at  him  at  once,  is  as  finished  and  as 
elegantly  balanced  as  if  he  had  pondered  all  a  rainy 
Sunday  over  it.  I  am  afraid  he  will  cease  to  be  the 
Republican  idol  before  long.  He  has  too  much 
sense  and  integrity  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  Socialist 
fanatics. " 

Of  three  other  Spanish  orators  Hay  has  sketches, 
hasty  but  penetrating. 

"Sagasta,  Ministro  de  la  Gubernacion,  greatly  dis 
tinguished  himself  on  Monday.  He  defended  the 
Government,  especially  himself,  with  wonderful  vigor 
and  malice.  He  is  the  hardest  hitter  in  the  Cortes. 
Everybody  calls  him  a  scamp,  and  everybody  seems 
to  admire  him,  nevertheless.  He  is  a  sort  of  Disraeli 
—  lithe,  active,  full  of  energy  and  hate  —  tormented 
by  the  Opposition  to  the  proper  point  of  hot  anger, 


322  JOHN  HAY 

he  made  a  defensive  offensive  that  enchanted  the 
Government  benches. 

"Silvela  also  made  a  good  speech  or  two  —  but 
Silvela  is  rather  too  good  a  fellow  for  this  kind  of 
work.  He  is  very  sincere  and  candid,  but  lacks  the 
Devil,  which  makes  Sagasta  so  audacious  and  Prim 
so  cool. 

"Prim's  speech  Tuesday  evening  after  Castelar 
had  announced  the  intention  of  the  Republicans  to 
retire,  was  a  masterpiece.  He  begged  them  to  re 
consider —  he  was  frank,  open,  soldierly;  he  begged 
them  to  stay,  and  threatened  them  with  severe  meas 
ures  if  they  went  —  he  was  not  savage  and  insulting 
like  Sagasta  —  nor  phrasy  like  Silvela ;  but  he  was 
the  perfection  of  enigma,  as  always.  His  speech 
was  powerful  and  impressive  in  its  deep  simplicity 
and  greatly  affected  Castelar  and  the  Republicans. 
Castelar  answered  in  the  same  tone  of  exquisite 
courtesy,  rejecting  the  advice  which  was  coupled 
with  a  threat.  The  law  passed,  and  the  Republican 
Deputies  left  the  Chamber." 

Even  latter-day  readers,  ignorant  of  the  intri 
cacies  of  Spanish  politics  in  1869,  cannot  fail  to  enjoy 
these  portraits  of  historic  figures.  What  would  we 
not  give  to  have  a  similar  series,  sketched  by  a  for 
eigner  as  receptive,  keen,  and  detached  as  Hay,  of  the 
leaders  of  the  French  Assembly  eighty  years  earlier? 


THE  ROVING   DIPLOMAT  — SPAIN     323 

The  diplomatic  business  which  chiefly  concerned 
the  Legation  had  to  do  with  Porto  Rico  and  with 
Cuba.  The  latter  island  was  in  insurrection,  and 
President  Grant  signed  a  proclamation  recognizing 
the  Cubans  as  belligerents;  but  Hamilton  Fish,  his 
Secretary  of  State,  wisely  deferred  issuing  it.  At 
Madrid,  Sickles  and  Hay  would  have  gone  further 
and  had  the  United  States  Government  interfere  in 
behalf  of  Cuban  independence. 

"The  amount  of  talk  we  have  done  since  we  came 
here  is  something  portentous, "  Hay  writes  Nicolay 
on  October  7,  1869. 

"  I  have  been  always  on  hand  as  a  medium  of  com 
munication,  and  so  have  seen  more  of  the  gros  bon 
nets  than  usually  falls  to  the  lot  of  secretaries.  We 
have  a  good  enough  time  of  it;  have  done  nothing  but 
show  our  amicable  intentions.  The  Government  here 
is  crazy  to  accept  our  offered  mediation,  but  does 
not  dare.  The  cession  of  Cuba  to  the  Cubans  would 
be  a  measure  too  frightfully  unpopular  for  the  Gov 
ernment  to  face  in  its  present  uncertain  tenure. 
Still,  if  it  continues  to  grow  stronger,  as  now  seems 
probable,  it  may  take  the  bit  in  its  teeth  and  do 
something  after  a  while." 

Nearly  four  months  later,  Hay  reports  again  to 
Nicolay :  — 

"  I  have  no  news  for  you.  This  Legation  has  abso- 


324  JOHN   HAY 

lutely  nothing  of  importance  now  in  its  hands.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  tiresome  routine  work  which  em 
ploys  the  fingers  more  than  the  brain,  and,  by  way 
of  keeping  the  circulation  regular,  there  is  dancing 
enough  to  keep  the  feet  from  rusting.  I  am  getting 
rather  tired  of  it,  and  shall  begin  to  plume  my  wings 
for  flight  some  time  in  the  spring.  I  am  sorry  Sickles 
has  not  had  a  better  chance,  but  nothing  was  possible 
with  Fish's  system  of  platonic  bullying.  I  am  afraid 
Cuba  is  gone.  This  Government  wants  to  sell  out 
but  dares  not,  and  has  no  power  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
atrocities  on  the  island.  The  only  thing  left  to  our 
Government  is  to  do  nothing  and  keep  its  mouth 
shut;  or  interfere  to  stop  the  horrors  in  Cuba  on  the 
ground  of  humanity,  or  the  damage  resulting  to 
American  interests. "  (January  30,  1870). 

Hay  kept  his  Diary  without  regard  to  sequence. 
In  the  midst  of  the  abstract  of  the  daily  happen 
ings,  he  would  insert  the  draft  of  a  letter  to  be  sent 
or  the  copy  of  one  received ;  or  he  would  outline  a 
poem,  or  set  down  maxims  and  reflections.  Here  is 
a  page  of  observations  from  the  Madrid  period :  — 

"Indolent  people  imagine  they  would  like  to  be 
busy.  Industrious  people  know  they  would  enjoy 
being  idle. 

"The  English  servant  is  a  statuesque  image  of 
propriety.  The  French  a  sympathizing  but  respect- 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN     325 

ful  friend.  The  Spanish  and  Italian  have  the  sub 
ordination  of  children.  An  American  revenges  him 
self  on  fate  by  insolence. 

"  Americans  in  Europe  waste  time  enormously  in 
calculating  when  the  mail  will  arrive.  A  mail  is  like 
a  baby  —  you  can't  hurry  or  retard  it  by  talking 
about  it. 

"Politicians  like  corals  build  and  die:  others  suc 
ceed. 

"Mad  agitators  imagine  they  lead,  as  the  people 
come  after. 

"When  Sherman  marched  to  the  sea,  Bummers 
were  miles  in  advance.  They  carry  no  baggage  of 
character  or  responsibility  and  so  go  fast.  Rousseau 
held  a  Moses  necessary. " 

John  Hay's  best  chronicle  of  his  life  in  Spain  is 
contained  in  his  "Castilian  Days,"  in  which  he  com 
bines,  in  finely  balanced  proportion,  description,  in 
formation,  and  personal  impressions.  In  those  pages 
you  learn  how  minutely  Hay  studied  the  Spaniards. 
He  takes  you  to  the  theater  and  the  bull-fights,  to 
the  churches  and  the  palaces  and  the  Prado  Gallery ; 
he  visits  Segovia  and  Toledo,  the  Escorial  and  Alcala. 
Along  the  way,  he  sketches  in  characteristic  figures, 
beggars,  priests,  peasants,  nobles.  And  all  the  while 
he  pours  out  his  lively  comment. 


326  JOHN  HAY 

He  wrote  these  papers  during  the  first  months  of 
1870;  and  though  the  range  of  his  knowledge  and  the 
deep  relief  and  variety  of  his  background  prove  that 
he  carefully  prepared  himself  by  reading  Spanish 
history  and  literature,  he  never  rouses  in  you  the 
suspicion  of  having  crammed  for  the  occasion.  What 
ever  notes  he  made  for  the  preparation  of  his  "Cas- 
tilian  Days"  he  probably  destroyed:  for  they  have 
not  come  to  light.  His  Diary  also  contains  only  the 
account  of  his  early  meeting  with  the  Spanish  states 
men,  most  of  which  I  have  quoted  above.  Very  few 
letters  remain.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  gap,  the  book  itself 
is  the  best  memorial  of  his  stay  in  Spain. 

On  May  I,  1870,  Hay  presented  his  resignation  to 
General  Sickles,  regretting  that  "pecuniary  circum 
stances"  compelled  him  to  retire.  This  reason  en 
tered  into  his  decision,  and  perhaps  if  he  had  had 
independent  means  he  might  have  continued  in  the 
service;  but  a  desire  to  return  to  the  more  stirring 
life  of  America,  coupled  with  the  conviction  that  he 
had  completed  his  training  in  Europe,  chiefly  in 
fluenced  him. 

He  did  not  quit  Madrid  until  summer.  A  final 
letter,  written  on  June  30,  contains  a  bit  of  autobio 
graphic  retrospect,  and  notes  of  an  excursion  to  To 
ledo,  which  he  took  in  company  with  congenial  old 
friends  from  Washington. 


THE  ROVING  DIPLOMAT  —  SPAIN     327 

To  Miss  Harriet  K.  Loring 

I  have  a  curious  year  to  look  back  upon  —  more 
entirely  out  of  the  world  than  any  since  I  came  into 
it.  ...  I  went  with  Mrs.  and  Miss  Hooper  and  Miss 
S.  to  Toledo,  and  had  a  few  halcyon  days,  favored 
by  fate,  weather,  and  other  accessories,  in  that  deli 
cious  old  town.  I  have  rarely  had  such  larks,  -  -  the 
ladies  went  crazy  sketching  adorable  doorways,  and 
I  sat  by,  on  the  shady  side,  and  chaffed  the  pic 
turesque  beggars  grouped  around  in  the  rags  of  the 
period.  I  felt  the  coil  of  cares  slipping  away  from 
me,  and  leaving  me  young  and  appreciative  again 
as  when 

"  I  roamed  a  young  Westerner,  o'er  the  green  bluff, 
And  climbed  thy  steep  summit,  oh,  Warsaw,  of  mud." 

For  the  first  time  since  I  can  remember  I  have 
been  busy  this  year,  and  it  does  not  suit  my  com 
plexion.  There  is  a  good  deal  to  do  in  the  Legation, 
and  I  have  imposed  a  good  deal  of  work  upon  myself 
beside,  having  gotten  interested  in  Spanish  history. 
I  have  a  veritable  workshop  for  the  fellows  who  know 
things.  I  cannot  conceive  how  a  man  like  Mr.  Mot 
ley  should  have  preferred  England,  with  its  pitiful 
annoyances,  to  Austria  with  its  quiet  and  its  archives. 
I  should  like  to  read  about  twenty  years.  The  first 
ten  would  be  necessary  to  reach  the  proper  point  of 


328  JOHN  HAY 

humility,  and  the  last  one  might  hope  to  gain  some 
thing  substantial. 

"I  am  glad  I  committed  the  folly  of  coming/1  he 
confides  to  Nicolay.  "I  have  seen  a  great  deal  and 
learned  something.  I  speak  the  language  —  well 
enough  to  be  understood,  but  not  well  enough  to  be 
taken  for  a  Spaniard  —  a  Dieu  ne  plaise." 

Before  he  bade  good-bye  to  Spain,  Hay  had  the 
disappointment  of  seeing  the  Republican  cause 
there  founder,  and  the  Spanish  Cortes  looking  Eu 
rope  over  for  a  candidate  to  the  Bourbon  throne; 
and  before  he  took  steamer  for  home,  the  Prussians 
were  already  engaged  in  a  war  which,  though  he 
little  suspected  it,  was  to  result  not  only  in  the  check 
ing  of  Republican  ideals,  but  in  the  revival  of 
Authority  and  Privilege,  thinly  veiled  under  modern 
conditions  and  entrenched  behind  the  magnificently 
organized  military  despotism  of  Germany. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JOURNALISM 

WHEN  John  Hay  landed  at  the  New  York 
dock  on  a  September  morning  in  1870,  he 
was  already  thirty-two  years  old,  carrying  in  his 
memory  a  treasure  of  experiences  which  few  could 
match,  but  counting  little,  very  little  money  in  his 
purse  or  in  the  bank.  His  travels  had  made  him 
what  from  early  boyhood  he  had  longed  to  be,  a  citi 
zen  of  the  world ;  equally  at  home  in  London  or  in 
Paris,  in  Vienna  or  in  Madrid.  To  make  a  living  was 
now,  as  it  had  been  since  1865,  his  first  concern:  be 
cause  the  American  community  still  regarded  bread- 
winning  as  the  normal  condition  of  every  man, 
whether  the  bread  he  won  were  plain  and  crusty, 
or  accompanied  by  those  luxuries  which  are  the 
necessaries  of  the  rich. 

Hay  knew  himself  too  well  to  suppose  that  he 
could  ever  succeed  as  a  money-maker.  His  talents, 
rare  and  sparkling  and  delightful,  procured  for  him 
the  friendships  and  intimacies  which  wealth  cannot 
buy;  but  these  commodities  were  not  listed  in  Wall 
Street.  By  instinct  an  artist,  he  could  not  be  satis 
fied  with  the  Bohemian  life  in  which  poor  painters, 


330  JOHN  HAY 

writers,  poets,  sculptors  and  journalists  forgot  their 
poverty.  He  mixed  with  them,  but  he  was  never 
wholly  of  them;  for  a  strand  of  fastidiousness  ran 
through  his  nature,  and  Bohemia  would  not  be  Bo 
hemia  if  it  were  fastidious.  Dignity,  too,  character 
ized  Hay  from  his  youth;  and  while  he  might  be 
jovial  among  his  chosen  cronies,  he  was  constitu 
tionally  shy,  and  never  would  permit  liberties  to 
be  taken  with  him.  "No  matter  how  intimate  you 
were,"  his  best  friend  told  me, "or  how  merry  the  oc 
casion,  nobody  ever  slapped  John  Hay  on  the  back." 

He  came  home  in  1 870  expecting  to  go  to  Warsaw 
for  a  while,  and  then,  unless  something  better  turned 
up,  to  seek  an  editorial  position  on  a  newspaper. 
Possibly,  he  might  support  himself  by  lecturing. 
But  journalism,  the  refuge  of  whoever  can  hold  a 
pen,  seemed  to  him  the  most  promising  make-shift, 
especially  as  he  had  already,  during  one  of  the  in 
tervals  between  his  European  trips,  served  as  an  edi 
tor  of  the  Chicago  Journal. 

Going  uptown  after  landing  —  the  custom-house 
inspector  had  no  quarrel  with  him  —  Hay  called 
on  some  of  his  friends.  Toward  evening,  he  fell  in 
with  Whitelaw  Reid,  and  they  dined  together  at  the 
Union  League  Club.  Then,  as  the  story  runs,  Hay 
accompanied  Reid  to  the  Tribune  office,  for  a  last 
chat  before  taking  the  midnight  train  for  the  West. 


JOURNALISM  331 

On  his  table  Reid  found  the  freshest  despatches, 
some  of  which  would  serve  as  texts  for  editorial  com 
ment.  One,  containing  important  news  from  Europe, 
Reid  handed  to  Hay,  asking  him  what  should  be  said 
about  it.  Hay  volunteered  to  deal  with  it  himself,  sat 
down  at  a  table,  and,  in  very  quick  time,  he  gave  Reid 
a  leader  which  overjoyed  him.  The  next  day,  when 
Horace  Greeley  saw  it,  he  said :  ' 1 1  have  read  a  mil 
lion  editorials,  and  this  is  the  best  of  them  all." 

Such  is  the  legend  —  unverifiable  in  its  minutest 
details,  but  undoubtedly  true  in  its  substance  —  of 
John  Hay's  joining  the  staff  of  the  New  York  Trib 
une:  for  it  is  almost  needless  to  say  that,  with  Hor 
ace  Greeley  and  Whitelaw  Reid  both  so  enthusias 
tic  over  his  maiden  effort,  they  urged  him  to  stay 
in  New  York  and  serve  the  great  newspaper. 

The  invitation  attracted  Hay,  but  before  accept 
ing  it  he  wished  to  see  his  family  in  Illinois.  He  was 
also,  apparently,  considering  the  possibility  of  join 
ing  a  Chicago  newspaper.  On  his  way  out  he  wrote 
this  letter:  — 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS, 
Sep.  29,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  REID: 

I  leave  here  in  a  day  or  two  for  Warsaw,  Illinois, 
where  I  shall  spend  a  few  weeks  with  my  family.  I 


332  JOHN  HAY 

shall  then  probably  go  on  to  New  York,  and  shall 
not  fail  to  call  upon  you. 

I  thank  you  most  cordially  for  your  kind  and  satis 
factory  letter. 

The  Republican  was  hopelessly  water-logged,  and 
the  present  transfer  is  a  sauve  qui  pent  of  the  owners. 

If  you  should  by  accident  have  anything  to  say 
to  me  before  I  see  you,  my  address  is  always  Care 
Charles  E.  Hay,  Springfield,  Illinois. 

Nicolay  desires  me  to  convey  his  kind  remem 
brances  to  you. 

Thence  Hay  journeyed  to  his  old  home,  where  he 
took  up  again  the  simple,  unpretentious  life  with  as 
much  relish  as  if  he  were  not  a  licensed  cosmopolite. 


To  J.  G.  Nicolay 


WARSAW,  ILLINOIS, 
October  13,  1870. 


I  have  just  received  the  enclosed  from  W.  It  is 
a  model  of  holy  and  unselfish  anger  against  foul  and 
infamous  outrage.  I  have  written  him  a  letter  of 
cordial  sympathy  and  you  will  doubtless  do  the  same. 
The  article  he  refers  to,  I  wrote  after  you  left  Chi 
cago,  for  the  N.  Y.  Tribune.  I  have  not  seen  it. 

I  flitted  on  Tuesday  after  shipping  my  charming 
wards.  I  found  Warsaw  with  a  broad  grin  on  its 


JOURNALISM  333 

face  at  the  lovely  grape  crop.  My  father  made  1200 
gallons  of  good  wine,  and  even  my  shy  little  vine 
yard  made  its  debut  with  240. 

I  wish  you  could  have  been  here  and  eaten  grapes 
with  me  during  the  past  week.  They  are  of  a  most 
exquisite  flavor  and  sweeter  than  I  have  ever  seen 
them  anywhere  in  the  world.  Especially  the  much 
abused  Catawba,  which  people  were  thinking  of 
ploughing  up,  has  nobly  asserted  itself  and  produced 
a  superb  vintage.  We  are  now  through,  and  ready 
for  the  frost  when  it  comes. 

The  weather  is  lovely.  The  great  river  is  wrapped 
at  daybreak  in  a  morning  gown  of  fog,  but  soon 
brightens  up,  and  the  light  has  a  regular  spree  on  the 
many-colored  foliage  of  the  hills  and  the  islands. 

I  am  doing  nothing  and  find  it  easy  to  take.  I 
walk  a  great  deal  and  eat  for  several.  I  have  gained 
two  pounds  in  weight  the  first  week. 

I  have  a  very  cordial  letter  from  Howells  saying 
he  thinks  my  decision  the  best  one;  that  the  publi 
cation  in  the  Magazine  will  not  hurt  the  book,  but 
will  be  a  positive  advantage  to  it.  So  my  mind  is  at 
rest  on  that  score. 

On  his  return  to  New  York,  Hay  accepted  White- 
law  Reid's  invitation  to  the  Tribune.  His  accession 
came  at  a  turning-point  in  the  career  of  that  journal. 


334  JOHN   HAY 

Greeley  still  kept  his  post  of  editor-in-chief,  but  the 
work  of  editing  was  done  by  a  staff  composed  chiefly 
of  "Greeley's  young  men/'  the  most  remarkable 
group  of  editorial  writers  which  any  American  news 
paper  had  seen.  Few  of  them  were  over  forty;  two 
or  three  were  under  thirty;1  all  had  known  the  stimu 
lus  of  the  Civil  War;  all  spoke  the  language  of  1870, 
which  made  that  of  1860  seem  obsolete.  Whitelaw 
Reid  virtually  managed  the  paper,  although  Greeley 
still  shaped  its  general  policy.  The  venerable  George 
Ripley  conducted  the  department  of  literary  criti 
cism;  Hassard  was  musical  critic;  Bayard  Taylor 
wrote  on  anything  which  touched  his  miscellaneous 
interest;  Bromley  had  already  approved  himself  an 
all-round  journalist  of  high  rank,  and  William  Winter 
had  begun  his  unparalleled  career  as  dramatic  critic ; 
Smalley,  having  achieved  notoriety  as  a  war  corres 
pondent  in  the  Rebellion  and  at  the  battle  of  Sadowa, 
was  organizing  the  Tribune's  news  bureau  in  London. 
Of  them  all,  Greeley  declared  Hay  was  the  most  bril 
liant.  We  do  not  hear  that  the  veteran  and  the  new 
comer  ever  discussed  their  meeting  at  the  Niagara 
Conference;  if  they  did,  Greeley  bore  no  grudge. 

1  The  veterans  were  George  Ripley,  literary  editor,  born  in  1802; 
Charles  T.  Congdon,  born  in  1821,  and  Bayard  Taylor,  born  in  1825. 
The  birth  dates  of  the  others  were  Noah  Brooks,  1830;  Isaac  H. 
Bromley,  1833;  George  W.  Smalley,  1833;  J.  R.  G.  Hassard  and  Wil 
liam  Winter,  1836;  Whitelaw  Reid,  1837;  Jonn  Hay,  1838;  Mont 
gomery  Schuyler,  1843. 


JOURNALISM  335 

To  identify  Hay's  editorial  contributions  to  the 
Tribune  during  the  four  years  and  more  of  his  serv 
ice  on  its  staff  would  not  be  very  fruitful,  even  were 
it  possible.  Although  the  paper  had  ceased  to  be 
Greeley's  personal  organ,  editorial  writers  followed, 
of  course,  the  general  views  of  the  manager,  but  the 
public  seldom  recognized  the  author  of  this  or  that 
article.  The  editorial  "we"  leveled  alike  the  brilliant 
and  the  commonplace.  If  anonymity  dimmed  the 
fame  of  the  individual,  it  also  lessened  his  respon 
sibility. 

And  yet  among  his  fellows  the  special  correspon 
dent  or  the  editor  enjoyed  his  full  measure  of  glory. 
This  was  true  of  Hay,  whose  reputation  seems  to  have 
been  won  almost  immediately  in  the  sanctums  of 
New  York. 

The  following  letter,  written  soon  after  he  had 
buckled  on  his  harness,  describes  his  work:  - 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE, 
December  12,  1870. 

I  have  delayed  writing  for  a  few  days,  knowing  you 
had  seen  Reid,  and  that  he  had  told  you  I  was  alive. 
I  am  living  at  the  Astor  House,  which  is  now  run  on 
the  European  plan,  and  gives  me  a  room  on  rather 
reasonable  terms.  I  am  working  daily  on  the  Tribune, 
writing  editorials,  or,  as  it  is  here  technically  called, 


336  JOHN  HAY 

brevier.  I  get  salary  enough  to  pay  my  board  and 
washing. 

I  cannot  regard  it  as  a  successful  experiment  as 
yet,  though  Reid  and  the  rest  seem  satisfied.  I  do 
not  find  myself  up  to  the  work  of  writing  so  much 
every  day  on  a  given  theme.  But  the  Tribune  force 
is  sufficient  to  allow  a  good  deal  of  subdivision,  and 
so  far  I  have  written  just  what  I  please.  .  .  . 

Reid  talks  of  sending  me  to  Washington  —  not  as 
reporter,  but  as  a  sort  of  heavy-swell  correspondent; 
whereat  I  rather  reluct.  I  do  not  like  to  blame  and 
I  mortally  hate  to  praise.  Which  somewhat  narrows 
a  letter-writer's  field. 

Leaving  Hay's  entry  into  authorship  for  the  next 
chapter,  I  quote  the  most  pithy  of  the  letters  which 
pertain  to  his  work  on  the  Tribune. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE, 
Monday,  1870. 

I  have  read  all  I  could  find  for  three  or  four  years,1 
and  don't  believe  I  can  do  much  worse.  But  why 
do  you  talk  of  columns  and  halves?  —  the  foregoing 
ones  have  not  averaged  a  half.  However,  I  will  go 

1  Files  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  which  Hay  had  gone  through 
in  order  to  familiarize  himself  with  its  methods  and  its  treatment 
of  recent  history. 


JOURNALISM  337 

to-night  —  see  with  what  eyes  are  left  me,  and  write 
till  the  time  of  stereotypers  comes  and  the  voice  of 
the  devil  is  heard  in  the  hall. 

I  am  so  seedy  that  I  will  go  home  for  a  nap,  and 
come  out  this  evening  so  fresh  that  a  daisy  would 
look  blasee  beside  me. 

Dios  le  guarde  a  V.  muchos  anos. 

On  October  8,  1871,  the  Widow  O'Leary's  cow 
kicked  over  a  kerosene  lamp  and  started  the  con 
flagration  which  nearly  destroyed  Chicago.  As  soon 
as  the  magnitude  of  the  fire  was  understood,  distant 
newspapers  hurried  their  correspondents  to  the  spot, 
to  report  it.  Hay  went  for  the  New  York  Tribune. 
The  next  two  letters  describe  the  difficulties  that  he 
encountered. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CHICAGO,  12  Oct.  1871. 
Thursday  evening. 

I  arrived  here  this  morning  38  hours  from  New 
York,  and  found  Keenan  1  at  the  telegraph  office. 
He  got  here  last  night  and  prepared  a  despatch  which 
they  would  not  send.  Stager  said  if  he  sent  for  any 
body  he  would  for  his  friend  Bennett  of  the  Herald 
(who  has  had  two  men  on  the  ground  since  Tuesday), 

1  Henry  F.  Keenan,  then  on  the  Tribune  staff:  author  of  Trajan, 
The  Money-Makers,  etc. 


338  JOHN  HAY 

but  he  would  not  do  it,  for  them,  nor  for  us,  nor  any 
body.  We  worried  them  until  morning,  and  Smith 
of  the  Associated  Press  at  last  consented  to  send 
clandestinely  1000  words  if  we  would  restrict  our 
selves  to  that.  I  wrote  a  despatch  with  which  Keenan 
has  gone  to  the  office.  I  think  I  will  send  no  more 
letters  by  telegraph.  We  will  telegraph  what  seems 
desirable  for  a  day  or  two,  and  write  letters  to  go  by 
mail. 

P.S.  Keenan  has  just  returned.  Stager  is  inex 
orable  —  would  only  let  my  letter  go  to  the  Asso 
ciated  Press,  —  refused  to  let  the  Herald's  go  even 
that  way,  —  says  they  are  several  thousand  messages 
behind,  and  will  permit  no  special  despatches  to  go 
at  present;  —  eight  wires  are  broken. 

I  will  go  on  writing.  I  will  decide  to-morrow  if 
there  is  anything  requiring  heroic  treatment.  If  so, 
Mr.  Keenan  will  go  to  Detroit  (the  stations  nearer 
are  under  Stager's  control),  and  telegraph.  Other 
wise  you  must  rely  on  the  Associated  Press  for  news 
— unless  the  restriction  is  let  up  —  and  upon  us  for 
letters. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

[CHICAGO,  15  Oct.  1871.]  Sunday. 

This  ends  my  labors  for  the  present.  I  send  a  des 
patch  to-day,  and  Keenan  makes  up  the  news  for  it. 


JOURNALISM  339 

To-night,  if  I  can  get  away,  I  will  go  to  Springfield. 
If  anything  of  sufficient  interest  transpires  there  to 
morrow,  I  will  send  it.  Tuesday,  to  Warsaw  for  a  day 
or  two,  and  then  New  York  again. 

I  have  done  as  well  as  I  could.  I  have  a  clean  con 
science.  Your  condemnation  will  not  gall  my  withers. 
I  have  given  the  Great  Moral  Organ 1 16  hours  a  day 
ever  since  I  arrived. 

I  think  it  due  to  Keenan  to  say  he  has  done  all 
anybody  could  do.  His  failure  to  get  off  a  despatch 
on  the  night  he  arrived  was  inevitable.  Since  that  he 
has  been  ahead.  Friday  he  managed  admirably  and 
had  the  wires  nearly  the  whole  evening.  He  made  a 
favorable  impression  in  the  telegraph  and  newspaper 
offices.  The  Herald  had  five  men  who  went  off  to 
New  York  in  relays  and  got  up  their  despatches  on 
the  way.  I  don't  think  that  is  worth  while.  Keenan 
will  stay  a  few  days  and  then  report  for  relief  to 
you. 

Journalism  makes  insatiate  demands  upon  its 
votaries;  it  often  has  slight  scruples  as  to  propri 
ety;  but  the  following  letter  shows  that  it  did  not 
quite  succeed  in  turning  John  Hay  into  a  society 
reporter. 

1  The  Tribune  had  been  nicknamed  the  "Great  Moral  Organ," 
and  its  staff  accepted  that  title. 


340  JOHN  HAY 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

[WASHINGTON,  December,  1870.] 

Here  is  a  sketchy  letter  with  nothing  in  it  —  which 
you  can  use  or  kill. 

I  have  had  no  chance  for  any  decent  work.  I  wrote 
no  account  of  the  wedding1  because  the  family  as 
sumed  to  be  dead  agin  it  —  Mrs.  Sprague 2  having 
spoken  with  some  severity  of  Howard  J.  Q.  for  hav 
ing  taken  notes.  I  do  not  do  these  things,  but  would 
have  gushed  if  you  had  especially  wished  it.  I  gave 
Mr.  White  the  points  the  night  before.  I  found 
Mrs.  S.  had  accepted  for  me  invitations  for  Friday  and 
Saturday,  so  that  instead  of  being  with  you  Satur 
day  night,  I  shall  not  report  until  Monday  morning. 

So  many  people  have  spoken  of  you  and  sent 
greetings  that  my  paper  would  not  hold  their  names. 
The  Chief  Justice 3  and  the  ladies  were  sorry  not  to 
see  you.  He  said  the  Great  Moral  Organ  had  im 
proved  enormously  under  your  management  and 
was  now  easily  at  the  head  of  the  dailies.  Spofford 4 
also  spoke  of  the  excellence  of  the  paper. 

In  a  street  car  the  other  night  I  met  Zach  Chand 
ler.6  He  says  Greeley  is  all  right  —  he  hooes  that 

The  wedding  of  Miss  Chase  to  Mr.  William  Hoyt. 

Mrs.  Kate  Chase  Sprague  was  Miss  Chase's  sister. 

S.  P.  Chase. 

Ainsworth  R.  Spofford,  Librarian  of  Congress. 

Zachary  Chandler,  United  States  Senator  from  Michigan. 


JOURNALISM  341 

you  are  all  right.  He  knows  I  am  all  right  (interroga 
tively).  He  says  the  Tribune  must  support  the  Ad 
ministration  and  not  get  switched  off.  Asks  if  it  will 
do  any  good  for  him  to  go  up  to  New  York  and 
talk  to  you,  and  H.  G.  I  said,  'No!  write!  Your 
name  and  vigorous  style  would  have  as  much  effect 
as  your  personal  presence.' 

I  am  between  Celery  and  Cherubs.  I  dine  with 
Sumner  Sunday. 

I  will  take  your  orders  when  I  get  back  as  to 
whether  I  shall  write  an  R.  article  or  do  up  P.  The 
statue  is  worse  than  I  expected. 

The  Tribune  used  the  versatile  Hay  in  many  ways. 
His  first-hand  acquaintance  with  European  public 
men,  and  with  politics  abroad,  made  him  the  special 
warder  of  foreign  topics.  He  not  only  read  the 
Continental  journals,  but  also  secured  the  collabo 
ration  of  such  celebrities  as  Castelar,  whose  articles 
he  translated  and  of  the  French  novelist,  Arsene 
Houssaye,  who  was  then  in  high  vogue. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

[NEW  YORK,  n  March,  1875.] 

Here  is  a  letter  of  Houssaye's  which  ought  to  be 
printed  as  soon  as  there  is  room;  not  must  but  desir 
able. 


342  JOHN  HAY 

He  sent  a  column  or  two  of  puffs  of  his  ball.1  I 
think  what  I  have  put  together  at  the  end  of  this 
letter  would  be  well  enough.  The  rest  your  Nuevo 
Mundo  might  like,  and  I  have  put  it  back  in  the 
envelope. 

Enclosed  is  a  private  note  to  you  which  I  have 
translated.  He  wants  some  money. 

I  have  another  in  my  pocket  and  must  take  an 
early  day  to  translate  it. 

The  projector  of  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  is  the 
subject  of  the  next  note,  brief  but  not  lacking  a  char 
acteristic  touch. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

Feb.  1 6,  1872. 

J.  Young  Scammon  of  Chicago  was  here  this 
morning,  and  said  he  might  call  again  during  the 
day.  If  he  comes,  give  him  welcome.  You  know  who 
he  is  —  one  of  the  salt.  He  is  starting  a  new  paper 
in  Chicago,  and  wants  advice.  He  has  wads  of  money 
—  more  than  he  will  have  when  his  paper  is  a  year 
older.  He  is  coming  with  me  to  the  Century  to-mor 
row  night. 

The  Presidential  year  1872  saw  a  political  upheaval 
which,  if  it  had  been  led  by  a  man  of  command- 

1  Houssaye  had  recently  given  a  luxurious  ball  which  served  Paris 
as  a  three-days'  wonder. 


JOURNALISM  343 

ing  influence,  might  have  hastened  the  end  of  the 
evil  methods  of  Reconstruction:  but  Horace  Gree- 
ley,  the  Democratic  candidate  who  opposed  Presi 
dent  Grant,  was  neither  a  sound  political  thinker, 
nor  a  magnetic  political  standard-bearer.  On  being 
nominated  by  the  Democrats  at  Baltimore  for  Presi 
dent,  he  withdrew  from  the  Tribune,  which  Reid, 
however,  kept  steadfastly  loyal  to  him.  The  Lib 
eral  Republicans,  or  bolters,  who  hoped  to  work  a 
purge,  found  themselves  dished  when  the  Democrats 
both  stole  their  platform  and  chose  the  impossible 
Greeley  to  defend  it.  During  that  summer,  Hay  took 
a  trip  West,  and  reported  on  the  situation  to  Reid. 


To  Whitelaw  Reid 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILL., 
August  i,  1872. 


I  got  here  last  night  with  a  horrible  cold.  Start  to 
morrow  for  Warsaw.  I  spent  a  day  at  Saratoga,  and 
there,  just  before  the  train  started,  Henry  Richmond 
told  me  in  strict  confidence  of  the  tribulation  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  their  hunt  for  a  governor  [of 
New  York  State].  Kernan  is  a  candidate,  and  he 
thinks  that  his  being  a  Catholic  and  an  Irishman  may 
be  a  disadvantage  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Hoffman 
is  to  be  ruled  off  by  this  element.  He  thinks  that 
Church  is  the  best  man,  and  that  Church  will  run, 


344  JOHN  HAY 

if  there  is  a  strong  appeal  made  to  him.  It  would  be 
a  great  personal  sacrifice,  for  Church  is  a  poor  man 
and  needs  his  salary  as  Judge.  But  he  thinks,  if  he 
were  asked  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Greeley,  he  would  yield 
and  run.  This,  at  his  request,  I  told  him  I  would 
communicate  to  you.  Think  of  it,  and  do  what  you 
may  think  expedient. 

I  met  at  Cleveland  none  but  Grant  men,  who  of 
course  all  assured  me  that  there  was  no  Liberal  move 
ment  in  the  State.  I  think  myself  there  is  not  much. 

In  this  State  it  is  very  different.  A  large  propor 
tion  of  the  best  men  in  the  State  —  not  only  promi 
nent  men,  but  captains  of  tens  in  the  counties  —  are 
heartily  enlisted  in  the  work.  The  organization  is  ra 
pidly  getting  into  shape.  The  German  vote  is  aston 
ishingly  strong  and  united.  In  this  city  it  is  almost 
unanimous.  There  is  a  good  Liberal  Republican 
vote  in  most  of  the  counties,  which  is  estimated  at 
ten  per  cent  of  the  entire  Grant  vote.  I  think  this 
rather  sanguine.  But  there  is  a  pretty  bad  Democratic 
bolt  in  some  districts.  In  Pike,  150  Democrats  have 
signed  a  manifesto  against  Greeley.  In  Winnebago 
there  is  some  discontent.  But  there  will  be  an  excel 
lent  fight  made.  If  we  carry  Pennsylvania  and  Indi 
ana  the  prospects  here  will  be  vastly  increased. 

My  little  Brother  is  President  of  the  First  Ward 
Club  in  Springfield,  and  my  Uncle  is  President  of  the 


JOURNALISM  345 

General  Grant  organization.   Alas!  Alas!  for  life  is 
thorny  and  youth  is  vain. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

WARSAW,  August  4  [1872]. 

...  I  have  been  at  home  three  days  recovering 
from  my  cold,  and  am  now  pretty  well.  The  weather 
is  hot,  but  my  appetite  wholesome.  I  go  to  bed  at 
9!,  and  sleep  like  a  bear.  I  shall  come  back  prepared 
to  introduce  this  somnolent  tendency  into  the  col 
umns  of  the  Tribune. 

The  good  work  is  going  on  beautifully  here.  The 
Liberals  comprise  some  of  the  very  best  men  in  the 
country  and  the  bulk  of  the  Germans  and  Democrats. 
They  seem  hurt  when  I  intimate  a  doubt  of  their 
carrying  the  State.  They  feel  sure  of  it,  and  have  the 
figures  to  show  for  their  faith.  It  all  depends  upon 
the  solidness  of  the  Democratic  vote.  The  Liberals 
and  Democrats  will  reduce  the  Republican  majority 
of  50,000  to  nothing  at  all.  If  the  Democrats  vote 
solid,  or  even  lose  less  than  5  per  cent,  the  State  is 
safe  for  Greeley.  Every  Democrat  I  have  seen  says 
they  will  not  lose  two  per  cent  and  considers  even 
that  a  liberal  estimate. 

Carry  the  news  to  Hiram!  1 

We  are  all  still  in  the  dark  about  North  Carolina, 

1  Hiram  Barney. 


346  JOHN  HAY 

but  expect  to  know  definitely  to-morrow.  But  at  all 
events  it  is  a  great  success  for  Greeley.1  I  suppose 
that  even  at  Long  Branch 2  there  is  some  recognition 
of  nasty  weather  ahead. 

Some  of  these  days  you  must  come  out  here  with 
me.  You  are  growing  such  a  swell  that  nothing  short 
}f  palaces  and  houris  will  content  you.  But  I  think 
you  might  like  a  day  or  two  among  our  bluffs  and 
vineyards,  and  my  father  and  mother  and  sister 
already  regard  you  as  a  personal  friend. 

My  sister  (who  is  a  Greeley  man  of  great  energy) 
has  just  sailed  into  the  room  announcing  definitely 
our  victory  in  N.C. 

Carry  the  news  to  Hiram. 

I  will  go  to  tea. 

The  Lord  continue  his  liking  for  you. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

WARSAW,  ILLINOIS, 
November  27,  1872. 

I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  the  2ist  and 
am  of  course  greatly  concerned  at  the  news  it  con- 

1  The  country  still  believed  that  North  Carolina  had  been  carried 
by  the  Liberals  as  first  announced,  and  most  of  those  actively  con 
nected  with  the  management  of  the  campaign  continued  to  believe 
that  they  had  actually  carried  the  State.  They  subsequently  claimed 
that  this  fraud,  as  they  considered  it,  changed  the  drift,  which  up  to 
that  time  had  been  strongly  in  favor  of  Greeley. 

1  President  Grant's  summer  residence. 


JOURNALISM  347 

tains.1  I  had  seen  a  paragraph  of  the  sort  in  the  pa 
pers  here,  but  had  imagined  it  a  malicious  exaggera 
tion.  It  is  a  most  serious  matter  for  all  of  us.  Unless 
he  soon  recovers,  there  will  be  infinite  trouble.  .  .  . 

I  had  a  mixed  sort  of  journey.  I  was  snowed  up  on 
the  Erie  Road  and  spent  Sunday  in  Cleveland.  Ar 
rived  in  Chicago  Monday,  the  most  terribly  cold  day 
I  remember.  The  weather  and  the  Epizoo,2  every 
body  warned  me,  would  destroy  my  audience,  but 
had  a  very  fine  one  and  very  amiable.  I  spent  a  day 
in  Springfield.  En  passant,  Scammon  talked  Inter - 
Ocean  to  me,  but  I  bited  not.  Since  I  came  home, 
five  days  of  the  loveliest  weather  I  ever  saw.  I  lec 
tured  last  night  gratis  for  our  Free  Library,  and  the 
whole  population  turned  out.  I  start  back  next  week 
—  lecture  at  Cleveland  on  the  5th  December,  and 
expect  to  be  in  New  York  on  the  9th  or  loth.  My 
Young  Christian  talk  is  preying  on  my  mind,  but 
I  am  getting  along  with  it.  It  will  be  the  dullest  and 
heaviest  of  all.  I  have  no  vivacity  left  —  not  a  vi 
vacity  to  my  back.  I  shall  never  recover  my  tone 
until  St.  Paul 3  goes  to  70.  There  is  some  wonder 
ful  bedevilment  going  on  with  it  evidently, — what, 

1  Shortly  after  the  election  Horace  Greeley  broke  down,  physi 
cally  and  mentally.  He  died  on  November  29. 

s  The  epizooty  was  prevalent  through  a  large  part  of  the  coun' 
try  at  that  time. 

*  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul  Railway  stock. 


348  JOHN  HAY 

I  can't  imagine.  If  J.  brings  me  out,  I  will  take  care 
of  yours  and  J.'s.  If  I  am  swamped,  I  can  go  through 
bankruptcy,  and  that  is  said  to  be  an  edifying  expe 
rience. 

I  will  be  in  Springfield  next  week,  and  will  try  to 
see  Harlan  *  and  Palmer.2  My  uncle  was  elected  to 
the  Legislature  after  declining  to  run  and  refusing 
the  nomination.  Cullom 3  will  be  speaker,  and  wants 
to  be  Senator.  But  at  present  there  seems  no  pros 
pect  of  beating  Oglesby.  Logan4  and  Oglesby!5 
Par  nobile  I 

I  sleep  and  eat  very  well.  I  really  need  a  month  or 
two  of  idleness.  But  I  can't  stay  any  longer.  Please 
tell  Mr.  Nicholson  to  send  my  mail  up  to  Dec.  4  to 
the  Kennard  House,  Cleveland.  Retain  all  after 
that. 

The  next  letter  to  Reid  from  which  I  quote  was 
written  in  the  mayor's  office,  Springfield,  Illinois,  on 

1  James  Harlan  (1820-99),  United  States  Senator  from  Iowa,  1855- 
65,  1867-73. 

*  General   John   M.   Palmer   (1817-1900),   Governor  of    Illinois, 
1868;  Liberal  Republican  candidate  in  1872;  United  States  Senator, 
1891-97. 

*  Shelby  M.   Cullom   (1829-1913);    member  of  Congress,   1865- 
71;  Governor  of  Illinois,  1877-83;  Senator,  1883-1913. 

4  General  John  A.  Logan  (1826-86),  member  of  Congress  from 
Illinois,  1859-62,  1867-71;  Senator,  1871-77,  1879-86;  unsuccessful 
Republican  candidate  for  Vice-President  in  1884. 

4  Richard  J.  Oglesby  (1824-99),  United  States  Senator,  1873-79; 
thrice  Governor  of  Illinois. 


JOURNALISM  349 

September  3,   1873,  his  brother,  Charles  E.  Hay, 
being  the  mayor. 

Thus  far  have  I  marched  without  accident.  I  was 
to  have  gone  in  to  Warsaw  to-day,  but  my  brother 
was  trying  some  firemen  for  bathing  a  YELLOW  dog  in 
kerosene  and  then  setting  him  on  fire.  I  am  happy  to 
state  they  no  longer  belong  to  the  Fire  Department. 

I  thought  I  was  going  to  have  cool  weather,  but 
to-day  it  is  tropical.  The  cholera  has  burst  out  again 
with  great  fury  in  the  Southern  part  of  the  State,  but 
M.  le  Maire  says  he  has  pared  its  claws  here.  He 
hauled  up  several  of  the  richest  and  oldest  citizens 
here  for  not  policing  their  property  —  including  his 
own  grave  and  reverend  uncle.  It  did  not  amuse 
them. 

If  you  can  find  a  minute  in  the  intervals  of  the  mad 
delight  of  house-hunting,  please  tell  me  how  things 
are.  .  .  . 

By  the  way,  I  met  at  Barlow's  two  of  the  most 
interesting  people  I  have  ever  seen  in  my  life;  Lau 
rence  Oliphant1  and  his  wife,  who  was  a  L'Estrange. 
It  is  a  combination  I  have  never  seen  before,  the 
highest  knowledge  of  society  and  the  world,  com 
bined  with  a  mystic  and  passionate  philanthropy.  He 

1  Laurence  Oliphant  (1829-88),  journalist,  war  correspondent, 
novelist,  member  of  Parliament,  who,  with  his  mother  and  wife,  fell 
under  the  baleful  spell  of  Thomas  L.  Harris,  a  "prophet." 


350  JOHN  HAY 

talked  to  me  in  a  way  that  indicated  he  would  like  to 
write  occasionally  for  the  Tribune.  I  think  it  might 
be  worth  while  to  ask  him.  He  is  the  author  of 
that  brilliant  book  "Piccadilly/*  and  was  for  a  long 
time  Paris  correspondent  of  the  London  Times.  He 
knows  everybody  and  everything.  Dick  Taylor  was 
there,  and  said  he  wanted  to  meet  you.  Dana l  was 
there,  but  I  don't  recall  his  saying  anything  of  the 
kind. 

Not  long  after  this,  Hay  became  engaged. 

On  August  14,  1873,  he  writes  to  Whitelaw  Reid: 
"I  made  a  toilsome  journey  to  Sharon  last  Satur 
day  and  came  back  Monday.  Next  Saturday  I  am 
going  to  Saratoga,  and  will  return  Saturday  night  or 
Sunday  morning.  I  am  getting  completely  bunged  up 
by  my  travels  —  have  got  a  good,  honest  catarrh 
which  will  last  a  week  or  two  longer.  But  I  am  sus 
tained  and  soothed.  ...  I  wish  I  could  see  you  in 
the  same  predicament.  The  fact  of  being  in  love, 
and  seeing  a  good  woman  in  love  also,  is  a  wonder 
fully  awakening  thing.  I  would  not  have  died  before 
this  happened  for  a  great  deal  of  coin.  Get  well,  and 
then  get  engaged.  Time  flies." 

Hay  lost  no  time  in  letting  his  old  friend  Nicolay 
into  the  secret. 

1  Charles  A.  Dana,  editor  of  the  New  York  Sun. 


JOURNALISM  351 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

August  27,  1873. 

I  ought  not  to  leave  you  to  learn  from  strangers 
that  I  am  engaged  to  be  married  to  Miss  Clara 
Stone,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.  I  do  not  know  when  it 
will  be.  There  will  be  an  internecine  war  before  Mrs. 
Stone  consents  to  give  up  her  daughter  —  wherein 
I  sympathize  with  her.  Before  many  centuries  I  shall 
win.  She  is  a  very  estimable  young  person  —  large, 
handsome  and  good.  I  never  found  life  worth  while 
before. 

Miss  Stone  was  the  daughter  of  Amasa  and  Julia 
Gleason  Stone.  Her  father,  a  prosperous  financier 
of  Cleveland,  became  a  chief  benefactor  of  Western 
Reserve  University  in  that  city.1  Hay  and  Miss 
Stone  were  married  there  on  February  4,  1874. 

"  I  am  going  to  be  married,"  he  wrote  E.  M.  Stan- 
ton  on  January  8,  1874.  "  If  you  want  to  see  the  last 
of  me,  be  at  Mr.  Stone's,  113  Euclid  Avenue,  Cleve 
land,  Ohio,  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  February,  and 
I  will  show  you  a  lovely  woman  2  in  a  white  dress 
and  a  man  in  a  black  coat,  who  is  now  and  always 

Yours  faithfully/' 

1  He  founded  Adelbert  College  in  memory  of  his  son,  Adelbert 
Stone,  who  was  drowned  while  an  undergraduate  at  Yale  College. 

*  "  Her  name  for  this  month  only  is  Miss  Clara  L.  Stone."  (Written 
as  a  foot-note  by  Hay.) 


352  JOHN  HAY 

For  more  than  a  year  after  their  marriage,  the 
Hays  lived  in  New  York  and  he  continued  his  rela 
tions  with  the  Tribune.  Mr.  Stone,  however,  whose 
health  was  infirm,  wished  to  have  them  near  him  in 
Cleveland;  and  when  Hay's  own  health  was  im 
paired,  by  night  work  on  the  Tribune,  his  abandon 
ment  of  journalism  followed. 


CLARA    STONE    HAY 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AUTHORSHIP 

JOHN  HAY  may  be  said  to  have  grown  up  with 
a  pen  in  his  hand.  Endowed  with  an  unusually 
delicate  suggestibility,  he  imitated,  like  other  youths, 
—  without  being  aware  of  it,  —  the  writers,  prin 
cipally  the  poets,  who  delighted  him.  But  besides 
this  endowment,  he  possessed  an  authentic  talent  of 
self-expression,  and  the  desire  to  use  it.  In  those  ear 
lier  poems  of  his,  we  see  reflections  of  Poe,  of  Byron, 
of  Shelley,  and  of  others.  Always  facile,  and  equally 
at  his  ease  in  prose  and  in  verse,  he  turned  off  occa 
sional  pieces,  one  of  which,  "  Carrier's  Address  to  the 
Patrons  of  the  Daily  Illinois  State  Journal,  Spring 
field,  January  I,  1861,"  has  been  preserved.  Seldom 
can  the  newspaper  carriers  of  any  town  have  pre 
sented  to  their  patrons  so  remarkable  an  effusion.  It 
glows  with  patriotism :  it  greets  liberty,  at  home  and 
abroad;  it  salutes  Italy,  recently  emancipated,  in  a 
stanza  like  this :  — 

How  long!  how  still  Italia  slept, 

While  hireling  hordes  above  her  reigned, 

How  sad  the  tears  that  freedom  wept 
To  see  her  holiest  shrines  profaned. 


354  JOHN  HAY 

Into  the  midnight  of  her  dreams 

There  stole  a  whisper  faint  and  far, 
And  flushed  them  with  a  light  that  gleams 

On  lands  beneath  the  Western  star! 
And  as  the  tender  morning  broke 

In  glory  on  the  Tuscan  sea, 
The  sleeper  murmured,  as  she  woke, 

"THE  STATE  THAT  WILLS  IT,  SHALL  BE  FREE." 

And  Hay  prophesies,  as  very  few  of  his  elders 
would  have  dared  to  do  then :  — 

Though  sullen  fate  and  traitor  rage 
A  few  brief  days  the  fight  prolong  — 

Our  LINCOLN'S  name  shall  light  the  age, 
In  history's  scroll  and  poet's  song! 

Among  Hay's  papers  is  a  copy  of  Harper's  Weekly 
for  October  19,  1861,  in  which  appears  a  story,  "  Red, 
White,  and  Blue."  This  also  may  be  by  him,  for  it 
has  his  exuberance  and  his  clarity;  but  it  is  unsigned. 
During  the  war,  and  afterwards  on  his  diplomatic 
travels,  he  often  relieved  his  emotions  in  a  poem. 
Several  of  these  are  sprinkled  through  his  notebooks, 
the  handwriting  being  almost  illegible  from  the  jolt 
ing  of  the  train.  That  he  sowed  these  in  some  of  the 
magazines  and  papers  of  the  time  is  possible,  but  I 
have  been  unable  to  trace  any  of  them  in  print.  To 
the  Atlantic  Monthly  of  December,  1869,  he  sent  a 
paper  on  "The  Mormon  Prophet's  Tragedy,"  a 
spirited  account  of  the  attack  on  Joseph  Smith,  and 


AUTHORSHIP  355 

his  shooting  in  Carthage  jail  by  a  Christian  mob,  on 
April  27,  1844.  Some  of  the  participators  in  that 
crime  lived  in  Warsaw,  —  Nauvoo,  the  Mormon  set 
tlement,  was  only  fifteen  miles  to  the  north,  —  and  as 
Hay  was  then  five  years  and  a  half  old,  he  may  have 
remembered  something  of  the  excitement  which 
filled  the  entire  country. 

He  brought  back  from  Madrid  his  bundle  of  Span 
ish  sketches,  and  a  portfolio  of  fugitive  poems.  The 
former  he  had  no  difficulty  in  placing  with  James  R. 
Osgood  and  Company  —  a  feather  in  the  young 
writer's  cap;  for  that  firm  were  the  successors  of 
Ticknor  and  Fields,  the  publishers  of  the  chief  Amer 
ican  authors  of  the  century.  A  happy  accident  hur 
ried  his  poems  into  print. 

To  the  Overland  Monthly  for  September,  1870,  Bret 
Harte  contributed  "  Plain  Language  from  Truthful 
James,"  in  which  he  introduced  the  Heathen  Chinee 
to  an  international  audience.  The  following  month, 
during  Hay's  visit  to  his  family  in  Warsaw,  he  is  said 
to  have  written  two  poems,  "Little  Breeches"  and 
"Jim  Bludso,"  in  the  supposed  dialect  of  the  un 
shorn  Westerners.  Some  one  reports  that  he  was  with 
Hay  in  the  hotel  overlooking  the  river  at  Keokuk 
when  he  dashed  off  "Jim  Bludso."  There  have  been 
other  statements  and  counter-statements,  and  much 
speculation :  but  it  is  safer  to  accept  Hay's  own  ac- 


356  JOHN   HAY 

count,  which  appears  below.  Even  the  suggestion 
that  the  "Heathen  Chinee"  started  him  in  this  vein 
of  dialect  verse,  needs  confirmation;  because  that 
amazingly  clever  satire  is  not  in  dialect,  nor  is  it  im 
bued  with  the  sentimental  spirit  peculiar  to  Hay's 
"ballads." 

Whatever  its  origin  may  have  been,  Hay  printed 
"Little  Breeches "  in  the  miscellaneous  columns  of 
the  Weekly  Tribune,  on  December  2, 1870,  signed  only 
by  his  initials.1  It  had  an  instant  success,  compara 
ble  to  that  of  the  "  Heathen  Chinee  "  itself.  Its  pop 
ularity  soon  led  him  to  put  forth  "Jim  Bludso,"  and 
then  a  third,  "Banty  Tim,"  which  Harper's  Weekly 
published.  Later  he  added  three  more  to  the  series. 

In  letters  to  friends,  Hay  tells  of  his  dash  into 
literature.  To  Nicolay,  he  writes  on  December  12, 
1870:- 

That  ridiculous  rhyme,  "Little  Breeches,"  of  mine 
has  had  a  ridiculous  run.  It  has  been  published  in 
nearly  the  whole  country  press  from  here  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  As  my  initials  are  not  known  and 
they  generally  get  worn  off  on  the  second  print,  I 
have  not  been  disgraced  by  it. 

I  met  G.  at  breakfast  this  morning,  who  called  me 

1  To  the  Daily  Tribune  of  December  6  he  contributed  "The  Sur 
render  of  Spain,"  one  of  the  most  stirring  of  his  serious  poems. 


AUTHORSHIP  357 

Nicolay  and  was  very  cordial.  That  reminds  me 
of  Madrid,  where  we  were  all  called  Sickles  by  the 
Senoritas  for  a  week  or  two.  .  .  . 

Have  you  seen  the  first 1  of  my  " Castilian  Days" 
which,  by  a  Hibernicism  of  Fields,  is  a  night?  He 
seems  greatly  pleased  with  the  stuff  I  have  given 
him,  and  proposes  to  make  a  book  of  it  next  year.  I 
went  on  there  and  spent  a  day  or  two  very  pleasantly 
among  the  geistreich  of  Cambridge  and  the  Hub.2 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

TRIBUNE  OFFICE,  December  29,  1870. 

I  thank  you  cordially  for  your  delicious  book.3 
I  had  a  copy  before  and  can  now  indulge  in  the  lux 
ury  of  giving  it  away.  You  are  my  delight  and  my 
despair.  Where  the  demon  did  you  find  that  impos 
sibly  happy  way  of  saying  everything?  It  is  a  thing 
that  the  rest  of  us  blunder  on,  once  in  a  while,  but 
you  never  miss.  It  is  no  trick  or  fashion,  and  so  we 
will  never  tire  of  it  till  we  tire  of  living.  You  see  the 
critics  all  notice  this,  and  not  knowing  what  else  to 
say,  they  say  Hawthorne  and  Irving,  etc.  .  .  . 

I  am  plodding  along,  doing  rather  better  than  I 
expected.  Have  you  ever  seen  a  piece  of  dialect  I 

1  "  A  Field  Night  in  the  Cortes." 

2  Other  parts  of  this  letter  are  printed  in  Chapter  xin,  pp.  335,  336, 

3  Their  Wedding  Journey. 


358  JOHN  HAY 

wrote,  --  "Little  Breeches"?  It  has  had  an  appall 
ing  run.  It  is  published  every  day  in  hundreds  of 
papers.  Two  political  papers  in  the  West  have  is 
sued  illustrated  editions  of  it.  I  mention  this  to  show 
what  a  ravenous  market  there  is  for  anything  of  the 
sort.  I  can't  do  it  —  but  you  could.  That  Western 
novel  of  yours  must  not  be  much  longer  delayed. 

When  I  said  I  can't,  it  was  not  measly  but  true. 
I  wrote  another  one,  and  Reid  says  it  is  very  bad 
-  in  which  I  agree,  —  so  it  is  not  to  be  published 
and  I  will  do  no  more  songs.  .  .  . 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

March,  1871. 

.  .  .  They  send  you  the  February  Atlantic.  The 
March  number  has  nothing  from  me,  and  therefore 
it  won't  pay  to  buy  it.  The  April  number  has  a  first- 
rate  article  on  Spanish  holidays  by  a  youth  to  for 
tune  and  to  fame  unknown.  Item.  The  March  Lip- 
pincott,  which  has  a  Warsaw  story  into  it.1 

I  am  rubbing  along,  doing  my  day's  work  daily  — 
not  entirely  satisfied  with  myself  but  drawing  my 
pay  regular.  The  correct  press  and  the  unsuccessful 
critics  pound  me  black  and  blue,  but  I  eat  my  diurnal 

1  "The  Blood  Seedling,"  interesting  because  it  displays  in  its 
treatment  that  unconscious  conflict  between  realistic  substance 
and  a  somewhat  romantic  spirit  which  was  more  marked  in  The 
Breadwinners. 


AUTHORSHIP  359 

hash  with  a  good  appetite,  and  get  more  than  is 
right  for  everything  I  do.  I  have  just  sold  a  third 
dialect  poem  to  Harper's  Weekly  for  $50  to  be  pub 
lished  with  a  picture.  It  is  called  "  Banty  Tim  "  and 
touches  the  contraband.  Have  you  seen  "Jim 
Bludso  "  ?  I  send  you  a  copy.  It  has  been  more  widely 
liked  and  denounced  than  "Little  Breech." 

Horrible  power  of  drink !    Last  night  I  met 

at  the  Tribune  door  —  you  know  him,  the  wittiest 
journalist  of  our  time.  He  was  covered  with  mud 
and  plastering.  Had  been  rolling  in  the  gutter - 
was  crying  like  a  sick  child  —  said  they  had  kicked 
him  out  of  the  last  place  he  was  in,  —  begged  me  for 
twenty  cents,  and  sobbed  with  joy  when  I  gave  him 
fifty.  Some  night  he  will  die  in  the  street.  You  and 
I  have  kept  drinking  company  all  our  lives,  and 
yet  have  never  felt  for  an  instant  the  claws  of 
temptation.  Let  us  thank  God! 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE, 
December  24,  1871. 

I  am  badly  frightened  about  that  article.  I  will 
do  it  to-morrow  or  next  day  if  possible;  but  I  am  aw 
fully  worritted  with  many  things,  and  need  twenty- 
five  hours  a  day. 

Here  is  the  paragraph  of  editorial  to  which  you 


360  JOHN  HAY 

refer.  I  am  delighted  with  the  success  of  your  book, 
and  was  sure  of  it,  though  the  delay  of  the  second 
edition  is  infamous  and  shows  little  faith.  I  met  an 
angry  man  this  morning  who  went  to  Button's  for 
the  ''Wedding  Journey"  and  not  finding  it,  had  to 
buy  "Castilian  Days." 

Mr.  Howells,  who  was  then  managing  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  —  although  James  T.  Fields  held  the  nom 
inal  editorship  for  a  while  longer,  —  joyfully  accepted 
the  Spanish  papers,  and  advised  printing  some  of 
them  in  the  magazine  before  Osgood  brought  them 
out  as  a  book.  Five  *  appeared  thus  in  serial  form, 
between  January  and  July,  1871;  then  they  were 
all  issued  in  the  autumn  under  the  title  "Castilian 
Days."  Almost  simultaneously,  the  same  house 
published  "Pike  County  Ballads  and  Other  Pieces." 

To  his  friend,  Albert  Rhodes,2  Hay  wrote  on 
June  19,  1871:  — 

11 1  am  the  creature  of  accident.  I  am  not  to  blame 
for  the  absurd  vogue  of  my  doggerel.  If  you  want 
to  read  something  to  purge  your  soul,  some  good, 

1  January   Atlantic:    "A   Field-Night   in   the    Spanish   Cortes"; 
February:  "Spanish  Living  and  Dying";  April:  "Red-Letter  Days"; 
May:  "The  Cradle  and  Grave  of  Cervantes ";  July :  "Tauromachy. " 

2  Born  in  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  in  1840;  United  States  Consul  at  Jeru 
salem;  later,  at  Rotterdam,  Rouen,  and   Elberfeld;  contributed    to 
Scribner's  and  other  magazines.    Published,  Jerusalem  As  It  Is,  1865; 
and  The  French  at  Home,  1875. 


AUTHORSHIP  361 

honest,  hard,  horse-sense,  read  my  'Castilian  Daysr 
—  when  they  come  out,  which  will  be  next  fall." 

Hay  did  not  simulate  modesty.  Being  human,  he 
could  not  fail  to  enjoy  the  reputation  which  his  bal 
lads  brought  him ;  but  that  he  did  not  overestimate 
them  appears  from  his  reply  to  Richard  Henry  Stod- 
dard,  the  poet  and  literary  worker,  who  wished  to  in 
clude  some  of  them  in  a  compilation  he  was  making : — 

To  R.  H.  Stoddard 

THE  TRIBUNE,  October  5,  1871. 

I  hope  you  will  not  suspect  me  of  affectation  when 
I  tell  you  I  don't  want  to  go  into  Griswold's  book. 
I  am  no  poet,  —  I  make  no  claim  whatever  that  way. 
There  is  hardly  one  educated  man  in  my  acquaint 
ance  but  has  written  as  much  verse  as  I.  By  an  un 
lucky  accident  I  put  a  quaint  story  into  rhyme  and 
gave  it  to  Reid,  and  the  people  who  would  n't  read 
you  or  Tennyson  to  save  your  lives,  read  this,  and 
guffawed  over  it  and  —  me  wild  a  poet !  Then  Os- 
good  came  and  tempted  me,  and  the  mischief  was 
done. 

Now,  if  I  keep  quiet  a  year  or  two,  all  that  will  be 
forgotten  and  will  be  as  if  it  never  was.  I  do  not  want 
the  memory  of  it  preserved  in  standard  books  which 
will  go  into  libraries. 

There  is  nothing  I  respect  so  much  as  the  name  of 


362  JOHN  HAY 

a  poet.  If  I  had  done  anything  like  your  work  or 
Stedman's,  I  would  be  indifferently  conceited  over 
it.  But  I  have  never  written  a  rhyme  which  de 
served  to  be  printed,  —  still  less  to  be  gathered  up 
and  kept  as  specimens  of  literature.  I  can  do  some 
things  as  well  as  most  men  of  my  weight,  but  poems 
are  not  of  them.  Let  me  up,  and  pass  on  to  the  next 
man  in  H. ! 

I  also  read  with  infinite  delight  Harte's  savage 
article  on  Miller.1  I  don't  agree  with  it.  I  think  the 
wild  cuss  is  a  poet.  But  Harte  did  sling  his  scalpel 
in  a  most  stylish  way.  I  believe  I  would  have  en 
joyed  it  if  I  had  been  the  subject.  .  .  . 

Hay's  "  Castilian  Days  "  contains  many  of  the  best 
pages  he  ever  wrote  —  best,  that  is,  in  style.  After 
nearly  fifty  years  the  book  stands  unapproached  in 
English  as  a  panorama  of  Spanish  life  and  history, 
of  Spanish  legends  and  superstitions  and  landscape. 
Hay  comes,  an  outlander  from  the  New  World,  into 
that  ancient  Iberian  country,  where  many  centuries 
have  petrified  customs  and  beliefs,  and  the  Past 
almost  blots  out  the  Present.  Hay  views  all  with 
keen  eyes.  His  thirst  for  observing  is  unquenchable. 

1  Cincinnatus  Heine  Miller  (1841-1913),  who,  as  "Joaquin"  Mil 
ler,  had  just  published  the  Songs  of  the  Sierras.  Miller  affected  the 
flannel  shirt  and  cowhide  boots  of  a  son  of  Nature  and  was  f6ted  in 
London. 


AUTHORSHIP  363 

He  can  make  you  see  things  as  he  saw  them  —  fixing, 
in  the  vivid  sentence  which  remains,  the  play  of 
light  and  shade,  the  flash  of  a  momentary  street 
scene,  or  the  fleeting  impression.  He  furnishes  in 
formation,  but  not  in  the  guide-book  way;  and  as  he 
never  writes  merely  to  instruct  you,  he  is  rarely  dull. 
Perhaps  a  Spaniard  would  not  accept  Hay's  judg 
ments  —  what  native  ever  accepts  a  foreigner's 
criticism  of  his  own  people?  —  but  he  could  not  fail 
to  acknowledge  the  young  American's  general  sym 
pathy,  or  his  enthusiasm  for  the  undisputed  noble 
monuments  of  Spain. 

Those  who  accuse  him  of  writing  as  a  Protestant  or 
as  a  Puritan,  when  he  lays  bare  the  bigotry  and  igno 
rance  and  lack  of  any  religion  which  reveals  itself 
in  righteous  conduct,  misjudge  him.  His  condem 
nation  is  unsectarian,  —  the  verdict  that  a  normal 
ethical  nature,  regardless  of  creed,  would  pronounce 
at  the  sight  of  degradation  due  to  the  long  rule  of 
Jesuits,  and  friars,  and  to  the  Inquisition,  which  sur 
vived,  in  a  milder  form,  down  almost  to  the  time 
when  Hay  knew  Spain.  But  that  is  only  one  feature 
of  the  book.  The  lasting  impression  it  leaves  is 
of  variety,  clear-sightedness,  and  candor;  together 
with  Hay's  zest  in  observing  and  his  exhilaration  in 
narrating. 

Among  pen-pictures  of  travel  produced  by  Amer- 


364  JOHN   HAY 

icans,  we  may  reckon  only  Mr.  Howells's  "  Venetian 
Life"  as  a  rival  of  "Castilian  Days";  but  Hay  by 
his  higher  actuality  surpasses  that  delightful  minor 
masterpiece.  Howells,  the  more  practised  and 
smoother  writer,  breathes  through  his  pages  a  quiet 
almost  wistful  atmosphere  which  accords  perfectly 
with  his  theme.  But  Hay  employs  a  manner  of  treat 
ment  which  suits  his  Spanish  subjects  not  less  ad 
mirably:  for  in  Spain  there  is  often  no  atmosphere, 
no  mediating  haze,  only  an  air  so  translucent  that 
you  feel  that  you  can  touch  the  distant  mountains, 
and  there  is  no  compromise  between  dazzling  sun 
shine  and  cypress-dark  shadow.  Scarcely  less 
praiseworthy  is  the  balance  which  he  keeps  between 
vivid  description  and  not  less  lively  impression,  be 
tween  information  and  interpretation.  The  later 
literary  landscapists  —  Lafcadio  Hearn  and  Mr. 
Percival  Lowell  in  Japan,  and  Mr.  Henry  James, 
for  instance  —  tend  rather  to  impressionism;  so 
much  so,  indeed,  that  in  some  of  Mr.  James's 
sketches  the  objective  fact  seems  only  a  text  or 
stimulus  to  release  in  him  a  flood  of  subjective  emo 
tions  and  of  reflections  not  always  pertinent. 

But,  comparisons  aside,  "Castilian  Days"  holds 
its  place  in  American  literature.  No  book  in  its 
field  is  more  exactly  what  it  purports  to  be,  and  few 
display  an  ampler  range  of  qualities  —  wit,  irony, 


AUTHORSHIP  365 

enthusiasm,  shrewdness,  honesty,  indignation,  ro 
mance,  charm.  Free  alike  from  the  reserves  and  the 
cynicism  of  maturity,  it  speaks  the  perennially  al 
luring  language  of  youth.  Having  won  favor  while 
running  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  it  at  once  received 
a  more  than  friendly  recognition  on  its  publication  as 
a  book.  A  score  of  years  later  when,  having  passed 
through  many  printings,  a  revised  edition  was  called 
for,  Hay  wisely  decided  to  let  the  papers  stand  as  he 
originally  wrote  them,  in  the  first  half  of  1870. 

"  I  have  never  gone  back  to  Spain,"  he  says,  in  a 
brief,  model  preface,  "and  I  have  arrived  at  an  age 
when  I  begin  to  doubt  if  I  have  any  castles  there  re 
quiring  my  attention.  I  have  therefore  nothing  to 
add  to  this  little  book.  Reading  it  again  after  the 
lapse  of  many  years,  I  find  much  that  might  be  ad 
vantageously  modified  or  omitted.  But  as  its  merits, 
if  it  had  any,  are  merely  those  of  youth,  so  also  are 
its  faults,  and  they  are  immanent  and  structural; 
they  cannot  be  amended  without  tearing  the  book 
to  pieces.  .  .  . 

"  I  must  leave  what  I  wrote  in  the  midst  of  the  stir 
ring  scenes  of  the  interregnum  between  the  secular 
monarchy  and  the  short-lived  Republic  —  whose 
advent  I  foresaw,  but  whose  sudden  fall  was  veiled 
from  my  sanguine  vision  —  without  defense  or  apol 
ogy,  claiming  only  that  it  was  written  in  good  faith, 


366  JOHN   HAY 

from  a  heart  filled  with  passionate  convictions  and 
an  ardent  love  and  devotion  to  what  is  best  in  Spain. 
I  recorded  what  I  saw,  and  my  eyes  were  better  then 
than  now.  I  trust  I  have  not  too  often  spoken  amiss 
of  a  people  whose  art,  whose  literature,  whose  lan 
guage,  and  whose  character  compelled  my  highest 
admiration,  and  with  whom  I  enjoyed  friendships 
which  are  among  the  dearest  recollections  of  my 
life."  1 

In  1893,  the  Spanish  Princess  Eulalia  came  over 
to  represent  Spain  at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago. 
Hay  sends  Mr.  Adams  this  amusing  note  on  meeting 
her  at  dinner. 

CLEVELAND,  June  9,  1893 . 

I  dined  with  H.R.H.  Eulalia  at  the  R.W. ;  with 
a  heart  overflowing  with  kindness,  R.  introduced  me 
to  all  the  Castilians  and  Bourbons  as  the  author  of  a 
book  about  Spain  which  they  really  ought  to  read, 
etc.,  —  unconscious,  the  good  R.,  that  my  unhappy 
little  volume  treats  the  august  family  of  Spain  as  a 
set  of  pas  grandes  choses  from  Wayback,  who  have 
no  place  outside  of  penal  and  reformatory  institu 
tions.  Still,  if  they  can  stand  the  Hymn  of  Riego  at 
the  British  Embassy,  they  can  stand  an  abusive  book 
they  have  never  heard  of. 

1  Preface  to  revised  edition,  1890. 


AUTHORSHIP  367 

In  Hay's  Diary,  for  November  I,  1904,  there  is  an 
interesting  entry  in  regard  to  "  Castilian  Days."  The 
Presidential  campaign,  it  should  be  recalled,  was  then 
drawing  to  a  close. 

"  We  had  a  brief  cabinet  meeting.  I  was  somewhat 
chaffed  on  account  of  the  story  in  the  papers  that  the 
Irish  had  demanded  of  Cortelyou  l  my  expulsion 
from  the  Cabinet,  and  that  he  had  replied  that  he 
could  not  promise  that,  but  assured  them  that  a 
Catholic  Irishman  should  be  appointed  First  Assist 
ant  Secretary  of  State.  They  are  evidently  after  me. 
I  found  on  my  desk  to-day  a  pamphlet  carefully 
printed,  consisting  wholly  of  extracts  from  '  Castilian 
Days/  showing  that  twenty-five  years  ago  I  had 
whacked  with  the  freedom  and  irresponsibility  of 
youth  the  Spanish  Catholic  Church  from  Torque- 
mada  to  Padre  Claret. " 

A  book  which  is  made  a  campaign  document  a 
generation  after  it  was  written  is  still  alive;  and  this 
book  will  still  live,  not  because  sectaries,  religious  or 
political,  once  found  in  it  stuff  for  controversy,  but 
because  it  appeals  to  intelligent  readers. 

John  Hay's  poems  fall  into  three  classes.  First,  and 
most  famous,  are  the  "Pike  County  Ballads"  — 

1  George  B.  Cortelyou,  private  secretary  to  Presidents  McKinley 
and  Roosevelt;  subsequently,  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor, 
Postmaster-General,  and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 


368  JOHN   HAY 

named  from  the  Pike  County  where  he  spent  much 
of  his  boyhood.  There  are  six  of  these.  "  Little 
Breeches"  and  "Jim  Bludso"  rolled  out  spontane 
ously;  the  others  seem  rather  the  product  of  the  im 
pulse,  common  in  artists,  to  follow  up  a  happy  stroke 
by  repeating  it  with  variations.  In  the  complete 
edition  of  Hay's  "  Poems, "  put  forth  in  1890,  "  Gol- 
yer"  and  "The  Pledge  at  Spunky  Point' '  have  been 
added.  They  are  good,  and  if  the  first  two  had 
not,  in  a  way,  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  their 
type,  we  should  probably  think  more  highly  of 
them. 

For  one  of  the  reasons  why  dialect  poems  capture 
the  public  is  their  novelty.  Commonplaces  which, 
if  written  in  commonplace  grammatical  English, 
could  bore  us,  seem  strange,  and  therefore  rare,  when 
they  come  dressed  in  dialect,  which  serves  to  attract 
attention,  just  as  the  foreign  costume  does  on  the 
Italian,  or  Russian,  or  Japanese  peasant.  This  is,  of 
course,  not  all.  A  peasant  may  carry  a  precious  load 
on  his  back,  and  the  dialect  poem  likewise  may  be  the 
vehicle  of  a  very  important  message. 

The  best  example  of  this  in  modern  English  liter 
ature  we  find  in  Lowell's  "  Biglow  Papers/'  where  the 
Yankee  conscience  expresses  itself  with  characteris 
tic  irony  and  with  surpassing  wit,  on  questions  of  fun 
damental  significance.  In  adopting  the  language  of 


AUTHORSHIP  369 

the  country  folk,  Lowell  was  able  to  score  his  points 
more  effectively  than  if  he  had  written  them  in  pol 
ished  academic  diction :  for  we  still  have  an  instinc 
tive  belief  that  the  old  farmers,  or  village  characters, 
speaking  their  racy  vernacular,  must  be  as  honest 
as  they  are  unsophisticated,  and  represent,  somehow, 
the  simple,  ultimate  ideals  of  the  country.  As  Lowell 
uses  them  they  are  the  Yankee  equivalent  of  the 
Greek  chorus,  except  that,  instead  of  mellow  wit,  the 
Greek  old  men  abound  in  moral  platitudes. 

After  Lowell  the  two  Americans  whose  dialect 
poems  have  attained  a  popular  vogue  almost  equal 
to  his  are  Bret  Harte  and  John  Hay:  nevertheless, 
they  are  not  in  his  class.  For  neither  the  California 
Torty-niners  nor  the  Mississippi  roustabouts  and 
rowdies  were  involved  in  any  epochal  issues  such  as 
Hosea  Biglow  knew  he  was  adjudicating.  The  hero 
ism  of  Jim  Bludso,  however,  is  as  genuine  as  that  of 
Horatius  Codes,  and  Hay's  skill  consists  in  causing 
persons  of  all  sorts  to  feel  the  genuineness  of  it.  The 
dialect  helps,  because  it  introduces  us  without  delay 
to  the  actors,  the  situation  and  the  catastrophe;  but 
the  story  itself  becomes  so  pressing  that  we  almost 
forget  the  dialect  in  our  eagerness  to  learn  the  end. 
That  is  as  it  should  be :  bad  grammar  and  slang  can 
not  long  hide  absence  of  ideas.  In  one  of  the  later 
ballads,  "  The  Pledge  at  Spunky  Point/'  however,  we 


370  JOHN  HAY 

are  conscious  that  Hay  lays  stress  on  dialect  for  its 
own  sake;  as  for  example,  in  this  stanza:  — 

But  Chris'mas  scooped  the  Sheriff, 

The  egg-nogs  gethered  him  in; 
And  Shelby's  boy  Leviticus 

Was,  New  Year's,  tight  as  sin; 
And  along  in  March  the  Golyers 

Got  so  drunk  that  a  fresh-biled  owl 
Would  'a'  looked  'long-side  o'  them  two  young  men, 

Like  a  sober  temperance  fowl. 

Here  the  obvious  effort  of  the  writer  is  to  collect 
dialect  phrases;  in  "  Jim  Bludso  "  and  "  Little  Breech 
es,  "  on  the  other  hand,  he  rightly  put  the  story  first. 

But  besides  the  novelty  of  dress,  and  theintrinsic 
interest  of  the  story,  the  moral  sentiments  pro 
claimed  in  these  two  ballads  undoubtedly  account  in 
large  measure  for  their  hold  on  the  masses.  In  long- 
settled  communities,  having  their  accepted  laws  and 
creeds,  their  customs  and  special  proprieties,  it  comes 
to  be  tacitly  assumed  that  virtues  and  vices  follow  the 
line  of  social  cleavage ;  but  in  a  pioneer  social  medium, 
like  that  which  Hay  describes,  men  are  what  they 
are.  Hypocrisy,  dissembling,  and  all  the  subtler 
forms  of  pretending  to  be  what  you  are  not,  in  order 
to  stand  well  with  the  conventional  system,  are  com 
paratively  ineffectual.  How  can  you  conform,  where 
all  is  in  flux?  The  pioneer  sees  that  good  and  bad  do 
not  follow  creed :  that  it  is  not  going  to  church,  or  say- 


AUTHORSHIP  371 

ing  prayers,  or  listening  to  sermons  that  counts.  He 
scouts  at  original  sin,  although,  if  you  asked  him  why, 
he  would  probably  say,  "  because  he  has  seen  virtues 
cropping  out  unexpectedly  in  the  most  unlikely  per 
sons."  And  then,  deep  down  in  the  human  heart  lie 
the  desire  for  equality  and  the  conviction  that  most 
souls  are  "saved."  Theological  distinctions  are  a 
late  product  of  human  speculation.  The  rough-and- 
tumble  frontiersman,  deprived  of  every  opportunity 
to  "be  good"  in  the  traditional,  church-going  way, 
may,  by  a  single  act  of  heroism,  exemplify  the  no 
blest  ideals  that  are  preached  in  any  pulpit. 

The  moral  of  this  attitude  of  admiration  for  the 
valiant,  unselfish  deed  and  of  unconcern  for  the  pro 
fessed  doctrine,  Hay  put  plainly  in  the  most  famous 
of  all  his  stanzas,  that  which  concludes  the  ballad  of 
"JimBludso":- 

He  were  n't  no  saint,  —  but  at  jedgment 

I  'd  run  my  chance  with  Jim, 
'Longside  of  some  pious  gentlemen 

That  would  n't  shook  hands  with  him. 
He  seen  his  duty,  a  dead-sure  thing,  — 

And  went  for  it  thar  and  then; 
And  Christ  ain't  a  going  to  be  too  hard 

On  a  man  that  died  for  men.1 

1  After  Whitelaw  Reid  died  in  1913,  Cleveland  Town  Topics  printed 
an  interview  which  Mr.  W.  R.  Coates  had  with  him  in  1910.  Mr.  Reid 
said:  "I  was  responsible  for  the  last  lines  in  'Jim  Bludso,'  although  I 
did  not  write  them.  Hay  brought  in  the  poem,  having  finished  it  on 
the  train.  I  told  him  it  would  n't  do,  that  there  must  be  something 


372  JOHN  HAY 

His  summing  up  of  "Little  Breeches "  is  only  a 
variation  on  this  gospel  —  the  gospel  which  the 
founder  of  Christianity  preached,  "By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them  " :  — 

And  I  think  that  saving  a  little  child, 

And  fetching  him  to  his  own, 
Is  a  denied  sight  better  business 

Than  loafing  around  The  Throne. 

In  regard  to  the  much-debated  origin  of  "Little 
Breeches "  the  following  note,  from  Hay  to  J.  T. 
Fields  seems  to  me  to  be  conclusive,  unless  it  can  be 
proved  that  the  "bit  of  Western  talk"  to  which  he 
refers  was  not  the  "ballad"  in  question. 

To  James  T.  Fields 

NEW  YORK,  Dec.  7,  1870. 

Have  you  seen  a  bit  of  Western  talk  I  wrote  one 
morning  in  Boston  and  published  when  I  got  here? 
It  has  had  a  surprising  circulation.  The  whole  West 
ern  press  has  copied  it,  clear  through  to  the  Pacific. 
It  is  too  flimsy  for  criticism  of  course,  but  the  little 
touch  of  humanity  in  it  has  covered  its  sins. 

besides  the  recital  of  an  heroic  act,  some  thought  drawn  from  it  that 
was  vital  and  would  live.  He  immediately  sat  down  and  added  an 
other  stanza,  closing  with :  — 

"  '  Christ  ain't  going  to  be  too  hard 
On  a  man  who  died  for  men.' 

In  that  same  way,  I  am  responsible  for  the  last  stanza  of  '  Little 
Breeches.'" 


AUTHORSHIP  373 

As  this  note  is  dated  only  five  days  after  the  publi 
cation  of  the  ballad  in  the  Weekly  Tribune,  and  as 
Hay  was  visiting  the  " geistreich"  Bostonians  at  the 
time,  the  presumption  is  overwhelming  that  "Little 
Breeches"  was  born,  not  in  his  natural  habitat  on 
the  prairie,  but  in  Boston  or  Cambridge. 

In  time  Hay  came  to  loathe  the  mention  of  the 
poem  which  made  him  famous,  as  much  as  General 
Sherman  loathed  the  sound  of  "  Marching  through 
Georgia."  Everybody  quoted  it  to  him:  wherever 
he  went  among  strangers  he  was  introduced  as  its 
author;  the  parodies  on  it  were  numerous.  He  used 
to  say  that  the  rattle  of  it  dinned  in  his  ears  through 
life  like  a  tin  can  tied  to  a  dog's  tail.  When  he  re- 
published  his  poems,  he  put  "  Jim  Bludso"  first  in  its 
place. 

To  E.  C.  Stedman,  who  wrote  to  consult  him  in 
regard  to  selections  for  "An  American  Anthology," 
Hay  replied:  "I  do  not  want  to  interfere  with  your 
editorial  conscience,  but  would  like  timidly  to  sug 
gest  that  you  do  not  use  'Little  Br '  in  your 

recueil.  You  would  pardon  the  cheeky  request  if 
you  knew  how  odious  the  very  name  of  that  hope 
less  fluke  is  to  yours  faithfully." 

The  first  English  edition,  printed  in  1871,  was  en 
titled  "Little  Breeches,"  and  the  London  Athen&um 
commented  on  it  in  the  tone  of  condescension  then 


374  JOHN  HAY 

typical  of  the  English  in  their  estimate  of  American 
publications. 

" It  cannot  be  denied,"  said  the  Athen&um,  "that 
there  is  a  quaint  vigour  in  Mr.  Hay's  manner  of 
telling  these  anecdotes,  but  there  is  nothing  in  the 
ballads  to  warrant  the  praise  bestowed  upon  them 
by  the  American  press."  l 

Nevertheless,  following  their  habit  of  insisting 
that  the  outlandish  or  uncouth  was  essentially  Ameri 
can,  the  English  took  up  the  "  Pike  County  Ballads," 
and  when  Hay  went  to  London  as  Ambassador  he 
heard  his  lines  on  many  British  lips. 

His  mature  feeling  toward  the  two  poems  he  ex 
pressed  in  this  letter  to  one  of  his  former  colleagues 
on  the  Tribune: — 

To  Joseph  B.  Bishop* 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  January  n,  1889. 

...  I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  kind  letter 
and  the  enclosures,  which  I  would  not  otherwise  have 
seen.  I  thoroughly  appreciate  a  good  word  spoken 
for  "Jim,"  who  is  a  friend  of  mine.  I  shudder  and 
hide  in  the  cellar  only  when  the  boy  with  the  small 
Knickerbockers 3  is  mentioned. 

1  Athenaeum,  no.  2291. 

*  Mr.  J.  B.  Bishop  was  on  the  staff  of  the  Tribune  from  1870  to 
1883;  then  he  went  to  the  Evening  Post,  1883-1900. 
8  Referring  to  "Jim  Bludso"  and  "Little  Breeches." 


AUTHORSHIP  375 

A  curious  thing  happened  during  that  summer 
when  we  were  holding  up  the  Republican  party  by 
the  tail. 

On  the  first  appearance  of  J.  B.,  Mark  Twain  wrote 
to  me,  saying  that  I  was  all  wrong  making  him  an 
engineer,  —  that  only  a  pilot  could  have  done  what 
I  represented  him  as  doing.  This  troubled  me  some 
what,  though  I  thought  I  was  right.  During  the 
summer  of  '87,  a  cotton  broker  of  New  Orleans,  a 
son  of  my  J.  B.  (whose  name  was  Oliver  Fairchild, 
by  the  way)  came  to  see  me  at  the  Tribune  Office, 
and  absolutely  confirmed  my  story,  saying  that  his 
father  was  engineer  of  the  Fashion,  and  died  in  just 
that  way.  But  the  case  was  of  course  uncommon  — 
the  pilot  usually  does  the  work  —  and  Jim  Givens 
comes  again  to  discredit  me. 

I  am  afraid  this  is  ominous  of  my  fate,  —  to  be 
right  as  a  historian  and  wrong  as  an  artist. 

To  a  later  correspondent  Hay  sent  this  final 
statement  about  the  original  "  Jim  Bludso." 

To  M.  H.  Slater,  Colorado 

WASHINGTON,  February  i3th,  1905. 

I  think  your  idea  of  the  mistake  arises  from  there 
being  two  Fairchilds  in  Hancock  County.  I  knew 
Oliver  Fairchild  very  well,  that  is  as  a  child  and  as 


376  JOHN   HAY 

a  man  grown  who  was  generally  on  his  boat  and 
rarely  at  home.  His  son,  Henry  W.  Fairchild,  of  New 
Orleans,  was  a  schoolmate  of  mine.  When  I  said 
I  got  the  story  from  him,  I  merely  meant  that  I  got 
the  details  of  the  burning  of  the  steamer  Fashion 
and  the  death  of  his  father  from  him.  There  is  no 
mistake  in  the  name. 

We  need  not  examine  the  rest  of  the  Poems  in 
detail.  The  volume  contains  a  group  of  "Wander- 
lieder"  inspired  by  a  special  occasion,  or  by  scenery, 
or  by  legends  and  tales  which  captivated  him.  Best 
among  them  is  "  Sunrise  in  the  Place  de  la  Con 
corde,"1  which  passes  very  naturally  from  a  sketch, 
delicate  yet  distinct,  of  the  actual  Place,  to  an  im 
aginative  review  of  the  intermittent  pomps  and 
tragedies  and  heroisms  which  it  had  witnessed. 

"The  Sphinx  of  the  Tuileries"  is  a  fine  example 
of  political  invective  which  is  saved  from  being  a 
diatribe  by  its  righteous  indignation.  Napoleon  III, 
he  says,  — 

is  a  Sphinx  indeed. 

For  the  Sphinx  with  breast  of  woman 

And  face  so  debonair, 
Had  the  sleek  false  paws  of  a  lion 

That  could  furtively  seize  and  tear. 

1  See  Chapter  ix.,  pp.  226,  228. 


AUTHORSHIP  377 

So  far  to  the  shoulders,  —  but  if  you  took 
The  Beast  in  reverse  you  would  find 

The  ignoble  form  of  a  craven  cur 
Was  all  that  lay  behind. 

The  closing  lines  lift  the  subject  from  the  denun 
ciation  of  a  base  individual  to  the  affirmation  of  un 
yielding  faith :  — 

The  people  will  come  to  their  own  at  last,  — 
God  is  not  mocked  forever. 

In  "Boudoir  Prophecies*'  Hay  plays  sarcastically 
with  the  changed  fortunes  of  Queen  Isabella  and 
Empress  Eugenie  -  -  a  piece  apparently  slight, 
yet  having  barbs  which  hook  it  into  the  memory. 
"A  Triumph  of  Order,"  reminiscent  of  the  horrors 
of  the  Paris  Commune,  is  a  bit  of  realism  as  unquali 
fied  as  one  of  Manet's  drawings.  And  yet,  in  the 
midst  of  almost  photographic  closeness  to  life,  Hay 
interjects  a  stanza  with  this  unusual  figure:  — 

For  the  joy  of  killing  had  lost  its  zest 

In  the  glut  of  those  awful  days, 
And  Death  writhed,  gorged  like  a  greedy  snake, 

From  the  Arch  to  Pere-la-Chaise. 

If  we  turn  to  some  of  Hay's  narrative  poems,  we 
shall  see  in  them  the  predominance  of  The  spirit  of 
Romanticism  as  contrasted  with  Realism.  (These 
labels  are,  in  truth,  somewhat  vague,  and  they 
smack  of  literary  cant;  but  they  will  serve  our  pur- 


\ 


378  JOHN  HAY 

pose  here.)  For  Hay,  like  many  another  artist  of  his 
generation,  was  possessed  by  the  two  conflicting  ten 
dencies.  Happily,  in  him  there  was  no  struggle,  far 
less  quarrel,  between  them :  and  so  he  was  saved  from 
the  effort  of  deliberately  choosing,  as  well  as  from 
the  conscious  partisanship,  which  troubled  some  of 
his  contemporaries.  When  a  subject  kindled  him, 
he  wrote  his  poem  on  it,  in  whatever  metre,  style,  or 
method  he  best  could,  never  inquiring  whether  he 
was  obeying  the  tenets  of  Realism  or  Romanticism. 
Therein,  at  least,  he  followed  the  practice  of  the 
world's  men  of  genius  instead  of  that  of  the  world's 
doctrinaires. 

The  Poems  faithfully  represent  John  Hay's  na 
ture,  not  less  than  his  gifts,  in  that  they  display 
versatility,  manifold  interests,  a  quick  perception, 
responsive  emotions,  irony  without  malice,  and  an  ap 
titude  for  the  unexpected  turn  of  phrase.  The  variety 
of  his  metres  is  remarkable.  His  ear  was  musical,  al 
though  not  always  correct.  Perhaps  his  lapses  came 
from  rapid  composition,  rather  than  from  any  real 
deficiency  in  his  metrical  sense;  for  he  often  seems 
to  improvise,  rather  than  to  work  over  and  polish 
his  verses.  To  improvisation  belongs  the  charm  of 
freshness,  which  Hay's  poems  seldom  lack :  its  danger 
lies  in  its  uneven  texture.  At  his  best,  Hay  delighted 
in  flowing  metres  and  well-matched,  sonorous 


AUTHORSHIP  379 

rhymes.  Sometimes,  especially  in  his  earlier  verses, 
we  catch  a  musical  sweep  which  might  be  thought 
Swinburnian  were  it  not  that  the  poem  antedated 
Swinburne's  first  volume.  He  did  not  need  to  go  in 
search  of  images,  because  they  swarmed  upon  him 
unsought.  ^ 

If  Hay's  general  poems  enjoyed  less  repute  than 
they  deserved,  it  was  because  they  came  at  a  time 
when  the  verse-reading  public  was  engrossed  in 
the  finicalities  of  metrical  forms  —  in  the  forgotten 
masterpieces  of  the  Cherry-Stone  Carvers,  and  the 
finds  of  the  seekers  after  banal  subjects  and  bizarre 
rhythms.  Since  their  day  has  long  since  passed,  it 
may  be  that  now  Hay's  poetry,  which  springs  from 
his  genuine  nature  and  not  from  a  mere  fad  or 
fashion,  will  appeal  to  the  grand-children  of  those 
who  first  read  it. 

I  hesitate  to  assign  subjective  significance  even 
to  those  poems  which  appear,  on  the  surface,  to  be 
personal  confessions.  The  real  artist  is  a  very  elusive 
creature,  who,  by  virtue  of  the  intuition  which  makes 
him  an  artist,  glides  like  Proteus  into  so  many  shapes 
that  the  critic  may  mistake  the  imaginary  creation 
for  the  creator  himself.  Still,  in  such  a  poem  as 
"Lagrimas"  Hay  seems  to  give  vent  to  a  personal 
mood,  or,  if  not  that,  to  a  mood  which  waylays  men 
of  his  temperament  when  they  discover,  poignantly, 


38o  JOHN  HAY 

that  the  momentum  of  youth  has  slackened  and  that 
the  things  which  they  had  taken  for  granted  would 
last  them  through  life,  were  the  perquisites  of  youth 
alone,  and  with  youth  have  vanished. 

LAGRIMAS 

God  send  me  tears! 

Loose  the  fierce  band  that  binds  my  tired  brain, 
Give  me  the  melting  heart  of  other  years, 

And  let  me  weep  again ! 

Before  me  pass 

The  shapes  of  things  inexorably  true. 
Gone  is  the  sparkle  of  transforming  dew 

From  every  blade  of  grass. 

In  life's  high  noon 

Aimless  I  stand,  my  promised  task  undone, 
And  raise  my  hot  eyes  to  the  angry  sun 

That  will  go  down  too  soon. 

Turned  into  gall 

Are  the  sweet  joys  of  childhood's  sunny  reign; 
And  memory  is  a  torture,  love  a  chain 

That  binds  my  life  in  thrall. 

And  childhood's  pain 

Could  to  me  now  the  purest  rapture  yield; 
I  pray  for  tears  as  in  his  parching  field 

The  husbandman  for  rain. 

We  pray  in  vain! 

The  sullen  sky  flings  down  its  blaze  of  brass; 
The  joys  of  life  all  scorched  and  withering  pass; 

I  shall  not  weep  again. 


AUTHORSHIP  381 

There,  indisputably,  is  a  sincere  poem,  welling  up 
from  a  heart  which  knew  that  passion  and  suffering 
are  two  aspects  of  the  same  experience. 

As  if  to  round  out  his  poetical  expression,  Hay 
wrote  a  cluster  of  epigrams,  from  which  I  cite  half- 
a-dozen  examples.  ~~Some  of  them  have  the  tang  of 
worldly- wisdom  before  it  has  soured  into  cynicism. 

2 

There  are  three  species  of  creatures  who  when  they  seem 

coming  are  going, 
When  they  seem  going  they  come:  Diplomates,  women,  and 

crabs. 

3 

Pleasures  too  hastily  tasted  grow  sweeter  in  fond  recollection, 
As  the  pomegranate  plucked  green  ripens  far  over  the  sea. 

5 

What  is  a  first  love  worth,  except  to  prepare  for  a  second? 
What  does  the  second  love  bring?   Only  regret  for  the  first. 

10 

Maidens !  why  should  you  worry  in  choosing  whom  you  shall 

marry? 
Choose  whom  you  may,  you  will  find  you  have  got  somebody 

else. 

II 
Unto  each  man  comes  a  day  when  his  favorite  sins  all  forsake 

him, 
And  he  complacently  thinks  he  has  forsaken  his  sins. 

13 
Who  would  succeed  in  the  world  should  be  wise  in  the  use  of 

his  pronouns. 
Utter  the  You  twenty  times,  where  you  once  utter  the  I. 


382  JOHN  HAY 

17 

Try  not  to  beat  back  the  current,  yet  be  not  drowned  in  its 

waters; 
Speak  with  the  speech  of  the  world,  think  with  the  thoughts 

of  the  few. 

18 
Make  all  good  men  your  well-wishers,  and  then,  in  the  years' 

steady  sifting, 
Some  of  them  turn  into  friends.   Friends  are  the  sunshine  of 

life. 

Thus  when  Christmas,  1871,  greeted  John  Hay, 
he  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  the  author  of  two 
volumes  of  poetry  and  prose,  either  of  which  made 
him  a  citizen  of  the  republic  of  letters.  Fortune, 
whose  favorite  he  always  was,  welcomed  him  with 
both  hands. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FRIENDSHIPS 

FRIENDS  are  the  sunshine  of  life."  That  might 
well  be  John  Hay's  motto,  the  maxim  which, 
had  he  been  one  of  the  Seven  Sages,  he  would  have 
bequeathed  to  posterity.  His  genius  for  friendship 
showed  itself  early  in  childhood  and  never  failed  him 
to  his  dying  day.  His  associates  delighted  in  him 
because  of  his  playful  wit,  the  richness  and  variety 
of  his  conversation,  his  deep-rooted  kindliness,  his 
frankness,  —  a  quality  which  does  not  always  make 
for  friendship,  —  and  his  sympathy.  They  did  not 
think  of  him  as  the  successful  author  or  the  brilliant 
editor;  and  later,  when  he  walked  on  the  highest 
levels  of  public  life,  he  still  remained  for  them  — 
not  Hay  the  Ambassador,  not  Hay  the  Secretary  of 
State,  but  Hay  the  friend. 

As  it  is  by  these  intimate  contacts  rather  than  by 
external  events,  which  often  seem  so  casual  as  to  be 
almost  negligible,  that  we  can  best  come  to  know 
him  during  his  middle  decades,  I  shall  quote  freely 
from  his  letters  to  his  associates. 

Above  other  American  letter- writers,  he  had  spon 
taneity  —  that  quality  without  which  a  letter  can 


384  JOHN  HAY 

hardly  escape  being  artificial,  if  not  insincere.  The 
notes  which  Hay  dashed  off  on  the  spur  of  the  mo 
ment  reflect  his  passing  mood;  they  tell  news  of  his 
work  and  of  family  plans;  they  give  his  opinion  of 
the  book  he  is  reading  or  of  persons;  they  sparkle 
with  the  wit  which  comes  to  him  as  he  writes;  they 
are  delightfully  indiscreet.  If  his  purpose  is  to  send 
information,  he  states  it,  but  without  pedantry.  So 
his  best  letters  have  that  charm  of  unpremeditation 
which  belongs  to  the  best  talk;  and,  in  this  respect 
at  least,  they  come  nearer  than  any  others  to  Byron's, 
which  are  the  best  in  English. 

During  his  bachelor  life  in  New  York,  Hay  made 
many  acquaintances  outside  of  the  circle  of  his 
Tribune  associates.  We  hear,  at  one  time,  of  a  small 
coterie,  composed  of  Whitelaw  Reid,  Dr.  Richard 
H.  Derby,  and  half  a  dozen  other  men,  with  their 
wives  and  sisters,  where  these  existed ;  and  this  club, 
which  met  informally  at  the  houses  of  its  members 
to  dine  or  sup,  was  a  shrine  of  comradeship.  By 
chance,  a  memento  from  it  has  come  to  me,  which, 
though  scarcely  more  than  a  bagatelle,  is  perhaps 
worth  preserving;  not  so  much  because  it  displays 
Hay's  sprightliness  as  because,  through  his  jesting, 
we  may  discern  his  seriousness. 

Those  were  the  days  of  Mental  Photograph  Al 
bums,  and  on  February  25,  1873,  Hay  made  this 


FRIENDSHIPS 


385 


portrait  of  himself  for  the  album  belonging  to  Miss 
Lucy  Derby.1 


1.  Your  favorite  color? 

2.  Flower? 

3.  Tree? 

4    Object  in  Nature? 

5.  Hour  in  the  Day? 

6.  Season? 

7.  Perfume? 

8.  Gem? 

9.  Style  of  Beauty? 

10.  Names,  Male  and  Female? 

11.  Painters? 

12.  Musicians? 

13.  Pieces  of  Sculpture? 

14.  Poets? 

15.  Poetesses? 

16.  Prose  Authors? 

17.  Character  in  Romance? 

1 8.  Character  in  History? 

19.  Book  to  take  up  for  an  hour? 

20.  What    Book    (not    religious) 
would  you  part  with  last? 

21.  What  epoch  would  you  choose 
to  have  lived  in? 

22.  Where  would  you  like  to  live? 

23.  What  is  your  favorite  amuse 
ment? 

24.  What  is  your  favorite  occupa 
tion? 

25.  What  trait  of  character  do  you 
most  admire  in  man? 

26.  In  woman? 

27.  What  trait  do  you  most  detest 
in  each? 

28.  If  not  yourself,  who  would  you 
rather  be? 

29.  What  is  your  idea  of  happiness? 

30.  Of  misery? 


Tricolor. 

Buckwheat. 

Industry. 

School  girls. 

The  Shepherd's  Hour. 

Currie-powder. 

The  odor  of  sanctity. 

Jem  Brady.* 

The  accessible. 

Jack  and  Jill. 

Fresh  air  and  sunshine. 

Infants  (aetat.  6  mos.) 

The  Sphinx. 

The  unpublished. 

The  Nine  —  (none  since). 

Lindley  Murray. 

George  Washington. 

Susan  B.  Anthony. 

"Jonathan  Wild." 

Dante  —  (because  there  is  no 
temptation  to  waste  time  in  read 
ing  it). 

The  Twentieth  Century. 
Everywhere. 

Worrying  the  wicked. 
Sleep. 

Luck. 
Pluck. 

Undue  prosperity. 

Her  second  husband. 
A  bad  character  and  a  good  diges 
tion. 
Life. 

*  A  prize-fighter. 


1  Now  Mrs.  S.  Richard  Fuller,  to  whom  I  am   indebted  for  this 
find. 


386  JOHN  HAY 

31.  What  is  your  b&te  noire?  A  pen. 

32.  What  is  your  dream t  Tiflis. 

33.  What  is  your  favorite  game?  "Woodcock's  Little  Game." 

34.  What  do  you  believe  to  be  your 

distinguishing  characteristics?       Sweetness  and  light. 

35.  If  married,  what  do  you  be 
lieve  to  be  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  your  better- 
half?  Self-sacrifice. 

36.  What  is  the  sublimest  passion 
of  which  human  nature  is  ca 
pable?  Waltzing. 

37.  What  are  the  sweetest  words 

in  the  world?  " It's  early  yet."  (Bleib  a  Bisserl). 

38.  What  are  the  saddest  words?  Too  late. 

39.  What  is  your  aim  in  life?  The  Universal  Commune. 

40.  What  is  your  motto?  Love  your  neighbor,  but  be  care 

ful  of  your  neighborhood. 

After  Hay's  marriage,  he  and  his  wife  lived  for  a 
year  in  New  York,  and  then  removed  to  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  where  they  made  their  home  for  nearly  ten 
years.  During  that  time  they  were  frequently  absent, 
and  on  one  occasion  they  spent  two  seasons  in  Wash 
ington.  Still,  Cleveland  was  home  to  them.  Mr.  Stone 
built  a  house  for  his  daughter  on  Euclid  Avenue. 
Hay  opened  an  office,  his  theoretical  duties  being,  it 
appears,  to  assist  Mr.  Stone  in  managing  large  fin 
ancial  interests;  his  main  business,  however,  —  the 
work  which,  in  spite  of  many  interruptions,  gave  con 
tinuity  to  his  energy  during  this  period  and  later,  - 
was  his  collaboration  with  Nicolay  on  the  Life  of 
Lincoln.  I  shall  return  to  this  biography  later, 
merely  begging  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  lay 
in  the  background  of  Hay's  thoughts,  whether  he 


FRIENDSHIPS  387 

mentioned  it  or  not,  through  all  the  years  covered 
by  the  following  letters. 

If  we  except  Mrs.  Whitman  and  Miss  Perry, 
the  encouragers  of  his  college  poetic  dreams,  Mr. 
Howells  was  probably  the  first  literary  figure  with 
whom  he  became  acquainted.  Although  only  a 
year  and  a  half  older  than  Hay,  Mr.  Howells  com 
menced  as  author  in  1860,  when  with  John  J.  Piatt, 
he  printed  his  first  volume/*  Poems  of  Two  Friends." 
This  Hay  read  in  Springfield,  and  on  his  journey 
East,  he  stopped  over  at  Columbus  in  order  to  greet 
and  congratulate  the  unknown  young  poet  —  an 
indication  of  his  enthusiasm.  But  Howells  happened 
to  be  away,  and  it  was  not  until  a  little  while  later, 
when  Hay  was  in  the  White  House,  that  they  met.1 
Thenceforth,  strong  friendship  bound  them  together; 
and  Hay  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  loyalest  of  the 
novelist's  admirers. 

A  note  to  one  of  his  European  correspondents  gives 
a  glimpse  of  his  early  married  life. 

To  Albert  Rhodes 

NEW  YORK,  January  28,  1875. 

I  was  right  glad  to  hear  from  you  and  to  learn  you 
thought  of  coming  back  to  us.  You  have  evidently 

1  Hay  must  also  have  known  of  Howells  through  his  campaign 
Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  published  in  1860. 


388  JOHN   HAY 

had  a  good  time,  and  I  suppose  you  are  now  coming 
back,  to  let  loose  a  brilliant  book  upon  the  university 
world.  Come,  and  have  the  success  you  have  so  well 
merited. 

I  am  leading  a  quiet  life  and  shall  be  glad  to  have 
you  egayer  it  somewhat  with  your  French  airs  and 
graces.  We  are  established  for  a  year  at  n  East- 
Forty-Second  Street  (wide  street,  you  know,  near 
5th  Avenue)  in  a  pleasant  house,  and  there  is  always 
something  in  the  larder  (I  don't  know  what  a  larder 
is,  but  it  is  euphonious)  wherewith  to  barricade  your 
bowel  against  the  wolf.  .  .  . 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

NEW  YORK,  April  29,  1875. 

I  can't  walk,  stand  or  sit  —  but  by  special  grace 
I  am  still  able  to  lie  on  my  stomach.  If  you  can  think 
of  a  subject  you  would  like  to  have  treated  from  that 
point  of  view,  send  it  over,  and  I  will  worry  it. 

Yours  in  Job-like  dejection. 

In  the  late  spring  of  1875  the  Hays  went  to  Cleve 
land,  where  they  lived  at  514  Euclid  Avenue  until 
their  new  house  was  ready.  The  following  year, 
serious  trouble  with  his  eyes  caused  him  to  forego 
writing  for  several  months.  He  seems  to  have  suf 
fered  from  what  later  oculists  diagnose  as  eye-strain, 


JOHN    HAY   AT   THE  TIME   OF    HIS    MARRIAGE    IN    1874 


FRIENDSHIPS  389 

which  caused  head-aches,  nervous  dyspepsia,  and 
depression.  Prolonged  rest  benefited  him ;  but  the  dis 
tressing  symptoms  recurred  at  intervals  all  his  days. 

Into  the  life  of  Cleveland  he  entered  with  his  cus 
tomary  adaptability.  Mr.  Stone's  position  was  a 
point  of  vantage  in  making  Hay  acquainted  with  the 
magnates  of  the  city.  His  own  interests  introduced 
him  to  the  political  leaders,  many  of  whom  had 
known  him  in  Washington  days  or  through  the 
Tribune. 

Whatever  social  life  Cleveland  offered,  the  young 
couple  had  access  to;  and  Hay  had  not  been  there 
long  before  he  organized  a  dining-club  composed  of 
eight  or  ten  men  of  various  occupations,  and  at  its 
dinners  one  heard  the  best  that  Cleveland  had  to 
give.  Hay  himself,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  their  survivors,  was  the  best 
after-dinner  talker  of  them  all. 

To  Albert  Rhodes 

514  EUCLID  AVENUE 
CLEVELAND,  OHIO,  July  9,  1875. 

Many  thanks  for  your  recollection.  But  Mrs. 
Hay  sawr  your  book  at  a  store  in  this  city  and  made 
cadeau  of  it  to  me.  I  have  not  read  it  yet,  for  Madam 
has  been  devouring  it  herself  and  occasionally  reads 
a  page  aloud  to  me,  which  justifies  my  long-standing 


390  JOHN  HAY 

opinion  of  your  sparkling  style  and  observant  eye. 
Please  accept  our  thanks  for  the  pleasure  the  book 
has  given  us,  as  much  as  if  we  had  got  it  for  nothing. 
I  have  been  a  little  of  everywhere  since  I  saw 
you.  First  I  went  to  Boston;  then  to  Illinois,  where 
I  passed  ten  days  at  my  father's  and  met  all  my 
brethren  who  are  still  alive. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CLEVELAND,  OHIO,  June  3,  1875. 

Yesterday  morning,  after  we  had  been  here  an 
hour  or  so,  the  corner  of  the  new  house  was  laid,  and 
ever  since  my  ears  have  been  full  of  the  muffled  click 
of  the  chisels  of  some  half  hundred  workmen  on  the 
soft  yellow  stone.  Mr.  Stone  is  much  better  than  I 
had  expected  to  find  him.  He  is  lame,  and  walks  with 
a  crutch,  but  otherwise  he  is  much  better  than  he 
was  in  New  York.  Of  course  he  is  far  from  well,  but 
I  feel  as  if  there  was  a  good  chance  for  a  steady  re 
covery  now.  This  removes  a  heavy  weight  from  my 
mind. 

We  have  had  as  yet  no  talk  about  our  business 
plans.  That  will  be  postponed  until  after  my  return 
from  Warsaw.  If  he  is  then  decidedly  better,  we  can 
come  to  some  conclusion  in  regard  to  the  winter. 

I  have  felt  a  dozen  times  yesterday  and  to-day  a 
sort  of  blind  impulse  to  go  down  to  Printing  House 


FRIENDSHIPS  391 

Square  and  write  some  brevier.  The  moment  the 
obligation  was  removed,  the  desire  to  write  began 
to  be  born  again. 

I  hope  you  have  endorsed  the  Ohio  platform  of  the 
Republicans.  It  is  almost  perfect,  and  I  suppose 
Hayes  l  to  be  a  good  sort  of  man.  The  Democrats 
have  made  so  bad  a  use  of  their  success  in  this  State 
that  there  ought  to  be  a  show  for  Hayes  this  time. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

34  PUBLIC  SQUARE,  CLEVELAND. 
July  19,  1875. 

I  merely  put  that  address  there  for  the  sake  of 
grandeur,  to  let  you  know  that  we  have  at  last  got 
into  an  office  and  have  carpeted  it  and  set  up  desks 
and  bought  some  note-paper  and  a  waste-basket,  and 
are  now  ready  to  skin  the  pensive  Buckeye  with 
neatness  and  dispatch. 

.  .  .  Don't  think  of  sending  me  the  Thiers  auto 
graph.  I  would  have  it  prettily  framed,  if  I  were  you. 
It  is  a  very  nice  thing  for  your  children.  It  is  the 
thanks  of  the  French  Republic,  voyez-vous  ! 

...  I  never  saw  so  many  pretty  girls  as  there  are 
in  Cleveland.  Hurry  along! 

The  Tribune  is  marvellously  full  and  good.    I  can't 

1  R.  B.  Hayes,  nominated  by  the  Republicans  for  Governor  of 
Ohio,  was  elected  in  October. 


392  JOHN  HAY 

read  it  all  nowadays,  but  I  struggle  through  as  much 
as  I  can  stand.  It  is  a  far  bigger  paper  than  I  thought 
when  I  was  there  in  the  kitchen  helping  to  cook  it. 
Only  don't  waste  your  nervous  system  altogether. 
Save  Hassard  and  some  of  the  rest,  and  you  can  keep 
it  as  good  as  it  is  for  a  lifetime. 

Scattered  through  Hay's  letters  to  Whitelaw  Reid 
are  references  to  the  growing  family.  This,  for  ex 
ample,  is  his  unusual  form  of  announcing  the  birth 
of  the  elder  daughter,  Helen:  — 

"DEAR  REID:  It  is  painful,  but  I  must  tell  you. 
My  wife  says,  when  you  come  to  the  house,  that  you 
have  got  to  hold  the  baby." 

In  another  letter  to  Reid,  on  quite  different  mat 
ters,  we  light  upon  this  amusing  parenthesis:  — 

"  (Mrs.  Stone  gave  me  to-day  a  portrait  of  herself 
with  my  wife  (cztat.  five  months)  sitting  in  her  lap. 
It  is  the  image  of  my  infant  to-day,  which  I  hope 
disposes  forever  of  the  foul  and  widely-circulated 
calumny  that  the  baby  looks  like  me.)  " 

And  here  is  probably  his  earliest  description  of  his 
son  Adelbert :  — 

"My  Tribune  commenced  coming  the  day  after 
I  telegraphed.  I  suppose  it  may  have  gone  wrong  a 
day  or  two  on  account  of  there  being  no  street  num 
ber  on  the  address,  but  it  is  all  right  now,  and  with  a 


FRIENDSHIPS  393 

boy  and  a  Tribune  in  the  house  we  are  sufficiently 
furnished  to  feel  comfortable.  The  young  man's 
name  is  Adelbert  Stone  Hay,  —  no  Jr.  in  mine,  if 
you  please,  though  I  fought  off  the  name  single- 
handed  against  great  odds.  He  is  a  fine  little  man- 
child,  ugly  and  strong,  lean  and  big-boned,  with  a 
boundless  capacity  for  sleeping  and  eating,  and  as 
yet  no  music  in  him.  Long  may  he  fight  it  out  on 
that  line. 

"  There  is  nothing  in  which  a  bachelor's  ignorance 
shines  out  so  flagrantly  as  in  his  feeble-minded 
conviction  that  babies  look  alike.  There  is  no  fam 
ily-likeness  even,  between  my  two.  My  little  girl, 
who  was  quite  ugly  at  first,  has  become  very  pretty. 
I  do  not  think  the  boy  ever  will,  from  present  appear 
ances,  but  he  looks  already  like  a  railroad  maker 
and  statesman.  Mrs.  Hay,  the  Lord  be  thank't,  is 
very  well.  The  babies  take  none  of  her  health  or 
good  looks  away  from  her." 

In  1883  Hay  writes  from  Cannes  to  Albert  Rhodes: 

"The  children  are  all  well  and  gay.  The  baby  is 
three  years  old  to-day  and  there  are  rumors  of  great 
doings  in  the  nursery.  A  cake  with  three  candles  and 
an  orgie  with  sir  op. 

"  I  too  have  a  letter  from  P.    His  glory  is  not  sat 
isfying  to  his  soul.    He  seems  disconsolate.    Where, 
my  brethren,  is  happiness?    In  the  dictionary." 


394  JOHN  HAY 

Hay  watched  the  Tribune  with  a  former  editor's 
special  interest,  and,  being  free  from  the  drudgery  of 
its  routine,  he  often  expressed  regret  for  the  pleasant 
hours  past.  "I  wish  I  could  drop  in  on  you  for  an 
hour  or  so,"  he  writes  Reid.  "When  I  am  in  New 
York  I  hardly  ever  go  to  anything  —  but  now  it 
makes  one  homesick  to  read  the  ads  in  the  Tribune.'1 
(June  5,  1875.) 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

536  EUCLID  AVENUE,  CLEVELAND,  0., 
February  20,  1877. 

I  send  a  few  lines  of  vituperation  for  the  Contribu 
tors'  Club  1  as  your  wisdom  may  ordain. 

I  hear  you  are  to  write  a  " No  Name"  2  story,  but 
I  do  not  believe  a  word  of  it.  Your  name  is  too  valu 
able  to  veil.  If  you  do,  let  me  know,  in  strict  confi 
dence.  I  cannot  afford  to  read  the  "No  Name" 
books.  I  fear  I  might  plunge  into  some  such  ditch 
of  M.  and  water  as  D.  Your  comedy  3  is  delicious. 
My  wife  reads  it  to  me. 

The  last  Atlantic  has  come,  and  we  think  that  no 
magazine  has  a  right  to  two  things  as  good  as  you 
and  James  at  once.  Is  not  "The  American"  aston- 

1  A  department  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

2  The  Boston  publishing  house  of  Roberts  Brothers  brought  out 
a  series  of  anonymous  novels  under  this  general  title. 

3  A  Counterfeit  Presentment. 


FRIENDSHIPS  395 

ishing,  even  to  us  who  always  believed  in  him?  Of 
course  not  " aesthetically  attractive"  —  but  —  well! 
well!  let  us  be  patient!  Such  things  have  always 
been. 

In  the  spring  of  1878  Hay's  health  was  so  seriously 
impaired  that  the  doctor  told  him  he  must  lie  off  all 
summer.  As  Mrs.  Hay  could  not  accompany  him,  he 
suggested  to  Nicolay  to  join  him  on  a  tour  of  recrea 
tion. 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

ROOM  i,  CUSHING'S  BLOCK,  CLEVELAND,  O. 
April  6,  1878. 

.  .  .  [The  doctor]  suggests  —  see  how  great  minds 
jump  together  —  what  you  did  —  Colorado.  Only 
you  suggested  taking  me.  Eh  bien!  Can  you  go?  If 
you  can't,  I  am  rather  inclined  to  Switzerland  in 
stead. 

If  you  can  go,  let  me  know,  and  when  you  can  get 
off.  It  won't  cost  you  much  —  all  the  extras  I  will 
stand,  and  you  will  come  back  to  Washington  so  fat 
they  will  charge  you  double. 

Let  me  know  at  once. 

I  think  I  shall  go  to  Philadelphia  about  May  1st 
and  consult  Weir  Mitchell  before  starting.  So  that 
all  definite  plans  can  be  postponed  till  then. 


396  JOHN   HAY 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

514  EUCLID  AVENUE,  CLEVELAND,  O. 
July  5,  1878. 

...  I  wish  you  could  ever  have  as  lazy  time  as  I 
had  for  ten  days  at  Warsaw,  —  though  I  suppose 
you  could  not  have  endured  it.  We  were  all  together 
without  our  wives,  and  spent  every  precious  minute 
of  the  time  in  loafing  and  remembering  our  childhood. 
I  got  acquainted  with  my  brother  Leonard  over 
again,  and  liked  him  better  than  ever.  If  I  had  not 
been  too  lazy  to  take  down  his  talk,  it  would  have 
been  all  good  copy,  about  life  on  the  frontier.  But 
as  I  was  going  to  say,  I  wish  you  would  take  care  of 
yourself  in  some  way.  It  is  getting  to  be  a  mania  with 
me,  .  .  .  and  I  made  myself  a  nuisance  at  Spring 
field  by  croaking  at  Charles  Hay,1  who  works  nearly 
twenty  hours  a  day.  I  am  grieved  and  ashamed  to 
see  that  the  Tribune  is  as  good  and  better  without 
me.  Why  can't  you  make  up  your  mind  to  let  it  go 
a  little  while  on  the  momentum  you  have  given  it! 
It  is  a  tremendous  paper.  I  see  it  more  plainly  than 
ever  when  I  am  away.  Every  one  I  meet  says  the 
same  thing;  it  has  fairly  conquered  criticism.  If  you 
would  now  learn  to  sleep  and  eat  like  a  Christian, 
it  would  be  all  the  better  for  you  and  your  congrega 
tion.  .  .  . 

1  John's  younger  brother. 


FRIENDSHIPS  397 

Nicolay  being  unable  to  take  the  European  trip. 
Hay  invited  his  brother  Leonard,  and  the  two  re 
newed  their  youth  while  traveling  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent.  John's  memorandum  book  con 
tains  brief  notes  which  show  that  he  was  not  too 
worn  out  for  sight-seeing.  As  usual,  he  listed  the 
paintings  and  monuments  which  particularly  at 
tracted  him.  At  Amsterdam  the  "towers  are  out 
of  perpendicular.  Read  Zola,  Une  Page  d*  Amour. 
Black  and  bitter  as  gall." 

At  the  station  of  Ehrenbreitstein  Hay  saw  the 
Empress  Eugenie:  "bowed,"  is  his  laconic  note;  with 
what  recollections  on  his  part  of  their  meeting  thir 
teen  years  before,  may  be  imagined.  The  brothers 
spent  some  time  at  Schlangenbad,  where  John  took 
the  baths  and  was  assured  by  Dr.  Bauman,  who 
looked  him  over,  that  "there  was  nothing  serious." 
At  Schwalbach,  Dr.  Carl  Genth  examined  his  eyes 
and  "  saw  no  organic  trouble  whatever." 

One  other  item  reads :  — 

"Weight  of  J.  H.  July  26, 1878.  Kilo  66,  gr.  500; 
German  pounds,  133;  English  pounds,  146^.  Weight 
of  L.H.  Kilo  71,  gr.  500;  German  pounds,  143;  Eng 
lish  pounds,  157^." 

In   September   the   brothers   came   home. 


398  JOHN  HAY 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CLEVELAND,  July  27,  1878. 

...  I  don't  see  any  good  reason  why  we  should 
not  set  December  7  as  the  Saturday  night  on  which 
we  shall  beguile  Howells  down  to  New  York,  and  I 
will  come  too.  Only  you  are  not  to  have  any  spread 
on  that  evening,  for  we  shall  want  to  go  to  the 
Century. 

Howells's  play,  produced  here  Friday,  is  a  trans 
lation  of  that  pathetic  Spanish  tragedy,  Yorick,1 
which  you  and  I  saw  some  years  ago  at  the  Fifth 
Avenue.  Howells  has  greatly  improved  it.  It  is  a 
beautiful  tragedy  now  and  Barrett 2  played  it  mag 
nificently —  but  it  is  too  sombre  and  heart-breaking 
to  have  much  money  in  it. 

I  have  not  congratulated  you  on  your  great  coup.3 
It  is  the  biggest  piece  of  intelligent  journalism,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  mere  enterprise,  that  has  been  done 
in  the  country.  The  leader- writing  about  it  has  been 
as  good  as  the  cipher- work,  —  can't  say  better,  for 
obvious  reasons. 

I  have  not  thanked  you  either  for  taking  me  to 

1  By  Estebanez,  whose  play  in  Spanish  is  Un  Nuevo  Mundo. 

*  Lawrence  Barrett  (1838-91),  actor  who,  during  his  last  years, 
starred  with  Edwin  Booth. 

8  Deciphering  the  Florida  despatches  which  were  held  by  Re 
publicans  to  prove  the  corrupt  practices  of  the  Democrats. 


FRIENDSHIPS  399 

Teaneck,  that  Sunday.  I  never  had  really  talked  with 
Walter  Phelps  *  before,  and  I  should  not  have  felt 
like  leaving  the  world  without  meeting  so  original 
and  lovable  a  character.  He  is  charming  —  mind 
and  heart  both,  —  one  of  the  fellows  that  ought  to 
live  forever  to  help  sweeten  a  brackish  world. 

To  the  playwright  himself,  Hay  sent  not  only 
congratulations  on  Yorick's  Love,  but  this  fragment 
of  dramatic  criticism. 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  October  28,  1878. 

I  went  home  last  night  moved  and  shaken  to  the 
core  by  your  play,2  and  I  woke  up  this  morning  with 
that  vague  sense  of  calamity  with  which  a  sorrow  of 
the  night  before  tinges  the  morning.  I  hardly  know 
how  to  begin  my  report  to  you.  If  the  theatre  was 
merely  a  temple  of  art  and  poetry  I  could  congratu 
late  you  on  a  great  and  glorious  triumph.  I  am  sure 
I  never  saw  Barrett  play  as  well,  with  such  sustain 
ing  agony  of  expression.  I  went  in  to  see  him  after 
the  second  Act,  and  he  was  haggard  as  a  ghost  and 
drenched  with  perspiration,  but  he  showed  no  di- 

1  William  Walter  Phelps  (1839-94)  whose  home  was  at  Teaneck, 
near  Englewood,   New  Jersey;   he  was   a   Congressman,   1 873-75 \ 
Minister  to  Austria,  1881-82;  and  minister  to  Germany,  1889-93. 

2  Yorick's  Love. 


400  JOHN  HAY 

minution  of  energy  in  the  last  Act.  The  play  through 
out  had  a  terrible  clutch  upon  the  feelings  of  the 
audience,  in  spite  of  the  young  man  who  played 
Edmund,  who  overdid  his  part  and  left  the  audience 
behind  him  with  no  inclination  to  catch  up.  In  all 
Barrett's  scenes  the  attention  was  painfully  intense, 
only  interrupted  by  quick  and  electrical  storms  of 
applause. 

The  audience  was  like  your  other  one  last  year, 
an  Atlantic  Monthly  crowd  which  crammed  every 
inch  of  space.  They  appreciated  the  good  acting 
and  the  good  writing  as  well.  The  exquisite  versifi 
cation  in  the  second  Act,  for  instance,  was  remarked 
upon  by  a  dozen  people  about  me,  who,  I  should 
have  thought,  would  not  care  for  such  things.  It 
was  a  great  tragedy,  nobly  played,  in  short;  and  it 
had  last  night  an  honest  and  legitimate  success.  The 
success  was  yours,  too,  for  it  was  a  very  different 
play  from  the  one  I  saw  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Thea 
tre  some  years  ago,  improved  almost  beyond  recog 
nition.  It  was  the  best  written  play  I  have  heard  for 
a  long  time. 

Now  shall  I  go  on  with  the  hateful  candor  of  a 
friend,  and  tell  you  the  further  impression  it  made  on 
me?  I  do  not  believe  that,  as  the  play  stands,  it  will 
ever  have  great  runs,  or  make  you  much  money.  The 
plot  is  so  simple,  the  story  so  sombre  and  heart- 


FRIENDSHIPS  401 

breaking,  that  after  the  play  becomes  known,  few 
people  will  go  to  see  it  except  those  who  enjoy  the 
very  best  things  in  writing  and  acting.  It  is  too  con 
centrated,  too  intense.  The  five  people  in  it  are  in 
such  a  profound  agony  that  an  ordinary  audience 
would  grow  nervous.  They  must  laugh  once  in  a 
while,  and  if  you  do  not  give  them  the  chance  to  do 
it  legitimately,  they  will  do  it  in  the  wrong  places. 
I  do  not  know  how  the  Greeks  managed  with  their 
awful  simplicity  and  work,  but  Shakespeare  had  to 
throw  in  what  I  dare  not  call  padding. 

Perhaps  I  am  croaking  in  vain,  after  all.  The  play 
is  magnificent.  I  wonder  how  any  contemporary 
Spaniard  could  have  done  it.  Your  part  of  the  work, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  faultless,  and  Barrett's  is  unques 
tionably  the  stoutest  piece  of  work  I  ever  saw  him 
do.  (You  made  an  improvement  in  keeping  Shakes 
peare  behind  the  flies.  He  was  almost  grotesque  in 
the  original.)  The  applause  was  of  the  sharpest  and 
most  spontaneous  kind  and  the  people  were  roused 
and  moved  in  a  very  uncommon  way.  Perhaps  I  am 
morbid  and  cannot  look  at  the  prosperous  side  of 
things,  but  I  think  you  will  prefer  to  have  me  say 
what  I  think,  even  if  I  am  wrong.  I  am  sure  I  never 
left  a  theatre  feeling  such  a  sense  of  tragedy  as  last 
night,  except  when  I  walked  out  of  the  Academy  of 
Music  one  afternoon  and  felt  that  I  ought  to  go  and 


402  JOHN  HAY 

tell  the  police  that  Salvini  had  smothered  his  wife 
and  killed  himself.1 

Turning  to  brighter  things,  Mrs.  Hay  and  I  are 
just  starting  across  the  ocean  with  Miss  Blood,2  with 
the  assurance  of  a  happy  voyage.  The  first  number 
is  delightful.  It  gives  the  pleasure  we  feel  at  the  first 
note  of  Wilhelmj's  fiddle;  we  know  he  can  keep  on 
doing  it  as  long  as  he  likes. 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  January  n,  1879. 

I  think  Colorado  must  be  the  thing  after  all.  I 
went  to  Europe  in  May.,  had  the  quietest  summer  of 
my  life.  Spent  a  month  or  so  in  England,  loafing  in 
city  and  country;  did  not  go  to  a  single  dinner-party 
or  opera;  then  loafed  through  Holland  and  Belgium; 
up  the  Rhine  to  Schlangenbad,  where  we  stayed  a 
month ;  then  a  little  of  Northern  Italy  and  Switzer 
land;  then  the  [Paris]  Exposition  and  Scotland,  and 
a  week's  sleepy  rest  at  Windermere,  and  home.  In 
all  this  I  was  more  quiet  than  I  would  have  been  in 
Cleveland.  After  I  got  back  I  imagined  I  felt  better 
for  a  month  or  so,  but  the  other  day  I  had  the  most 
ridiculous  attack  I  have  ever  had  —  thought  I  was 

1  Tommaso  Salvini  first  acted  Othello  in  New  York  at  the  Acad 
emy  of  Music  in  the  autumn  of  1873. 

2  A  character  in  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook. 


FRIENDSHIPS  403 

dead  for  half  an  hour.  The  doctor  said  it  was  nothing 
at  all  serious  —  simply  the  effect  of  the  cold.  But 
I  feel  rickety  yet. 

I  have  been  trying  my  best  to  get  to  work  again, 
with  very  indifferent  success.  But  I  feel  to-day  as  if 
I  might  make  some  headway  for  a  while.  I  will 
write  you  later  and  tell  you  how  I  get  on.  Perhaps 
I  can  come  to  see  you  later  in  the  season,  but  I  can't 
say  certainly  yet.  I  won't  come  unless  I  can  bring  at 
least,  say,  33,000  words. 

In  the  autumn  of  1879  William  M.  Evarts,  the  Sec 
retary  of  State  under  President  Hayes,  succeeded, 
after  much  urging,  in  persuading  Hay  to  be  As 
sistant  Secretary  —  a  post  which  he  filled  until  the 
installation  of  Garfield's  Administration. 

To  Albert  Rhodes 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 
WASHINGTON,  June  8,  1880. 

I  received  your  letter  of  the  22nd  and  the  "Vie 
Moderne  "  at  the  same  time.  I  thank  you  very  much 
for  sending  it  to  me.  I  have  always  been  greatly  inter 
ested  in  Flaubert's  work  and  am  glad  to  know  some 
thing  of  the  man.  I  have  read,  I  believe,  all  his  works 
except  the  "Education  Sentimentale,"  which  I  see 
you  call  in  your  admirable  letter  to  the  Tribune  "the 


404  JOHN  HAY 

weakling  of  his  brain"   -so  perhaps  I  have  not  lost 
much  in  missing  that. 

I  am  always  glad  to  hear  from  you.  I  have  no  news 
to  tell  you  except  that  I  have  two  daughters  and  a 
son  —  all  healthy  and  happy  —  and  that  I  have 
only  one  aspiration  in  life  and  that  is  two  —  to  get 
out  of  office  and  to  stop  having  headache. 

To  WMtelaw  Reid 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE, 
WASHINGTON,  February  u,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  WHITELAW  REID:- 

My  heart  is  full  of  your  happiness.1  I  give  you  a 
thousand  congratulations.  The  best  thing  has  hap 
pened  to  you  that  could  happen.  You  will  be  at 
peace  the  rest  of  your  life  so  far  as  the  greatest  of  all 
questions  is  concerned.  You  will  have  a  good  wife 
-  good  through  and  through  —  and  I  can  tell  you 
what  that  amounts  to. 

I  need  not  tell  you  how  I  have  desired  and  hoped 
for  this.  I  have  rarely  met  a  young  lady  whom  I  liked 
so  much  at  first  sight  as  Miss  Mills;  and  Mrs.  Hay 
sanctioned  my  judgment  of  her  noble  qualities  by 
some  feminine  judicial  process  which  does  not  re 
quire  long  acquaintance.  .  .  . 

1  Mr.  Reid  had  announced  his  engagement  to  Miss  Elizabeth 
Mills. 


FRIENDSHIPS  405 

The  proposition  on  your  last  page  takes  my  breath 
away.  I  suppose  I  shall  decline  it  finally,  but  I  shall 
take  pleasure  in  thinking  it  over  for  a  while.  It  is  a 
great  temptation. 

I  had  a  letter  to  you  lying  sealed  on  the  table  when 
this  momentous  missive  was  handed  to  me.  But  I 
tore  it  up  —  it  was  all  about  politics,  new  cabinets, 
and  myself,  and  such  small  deer,  not  worthy  of  your 
present  frame  of  mind. 

Well!  God  bless  you  and  yours,  now  and  always! 

The  proposition  which  took  Hay's  breath  away 
was  that  he  should  act  as  editor-in-chief  of  the  Trib 
une  while  Reid  spent  his  honeymoon  in  Europe. 
This  wras,  in  truth,  a  final  token  of  the  value  which 
Reid  set  on  his  judgment.  Hay's  literary  ability  no 
body  questioned;  but  judgment  and  tact  are  the 
compass  and  rudder  without  which  a  newspaper  can 
never  make  port,  and  Reid  plainly  trusted  in  him 
for  both. 

Hay  accepted  the  offer,  partly  to  assist  his  friend, 
and  partly  because  he  liked  to  try  his  hand  at  new 
and  formidable  undertakings.  The  Reids  were  mar 
ried  on  April  26,  1881;  and  for  six  months  Hay  sat 
in  the  editorial  chair  which  Horace  Greeley  had 
occupied. 


406  JOHN  HAY 

To  Albert  Rhodes 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  February  19,  1882. 

Many  thanks  for  sending  "  Serge  Panine."  I 
should  have  written  to  ask  for  it,  if  it  had  not  come. 
I  am  just  now  alite  by  an  attack  of  diphtheria  which 
will  soon  be  over,  I  am  told ;  and  then  we  shall  attack 
"M.  Panine." 

I  have  read  all  the  stories  in  Halevy's  volume 
and  find  them  delicious.  I  suppose  he  is  Jew  by  re 
ligion  as  well  as  by  blood;  otherwise  his  irreverence 
would  never  be  so  light  and  dainty. 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

CLEVELAND,  March  26,  1882. 

Your  letter  had  a  powerful  effect  on  Mrs.  Hay 
and  me.  Our  minds  were  in  solution  and  your  letter 
precipitated  them  in  an  eye-twinkle.  We  had  been 
intending  to  go  to  Europe,  but  thereafter  all  was 
vague;  —  now  we  shall  go  to  Florence.  What  larks! 
We  shall  sail  in  the  White  Star  steamer  of  July  15; 
if  you  took  the  same  it  would  be  —  butter  upon  sau 
sage,  as  Josh  Billings  once  said  in  an  inspired  mo 
ment.  I  have  been  working  hard,  and  laying  up  great 
store  of  MS.  I  shall  go  down  to  Washington  next 
week  and  talk  with  Nicolay  and  then  be  free,  for  a 
vacation  of  respectable  size. 


FRIENDSHIPS  407 

...  I  never  promised  myself  that  much  of  a 
spree  in  my  life.  I  feel  a  little  superstitious  about 
it  now  —  as  if  it  were  too  good  for  the  likes  of  me. 
But  to  escape  the  envy  of  the  Gods  I  will  take  a  lot 
of  historical  notes  in  my  trunk,  ostensibly  to  write  a 
few  chapters,  but  really  to  ballast  me,  and  lower  my 
spirits  with  the  thought  of  duty  unperformed. 

...  I  am  still  not  well,  and  the  doctor  tells  me 
not  to  be  worried  if  I  take  a  month  more  to  get  well 

in. 

Man  nennt  das  grosste  Gluck  auf  Erden 

Gesund  zu  sein; 
Sein  grosseres  ist  gesund  zu  werden. 

When  I  see  you  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  of  it. 

In  1882  the  Hays  went  to  Europe  and  passed  the 
winter.  Europe  on  the  East,  and  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  on  the  West  —  where  Hay  found  simple  quar 
ters  at  Manitou  Springs,  or  Colorado  Springs  — 
became  henceforth  his  chosen  resorts  for  recupera 
tion;  and  as  the  children  grew  old  enough  to  travel, 
they  went  too.  To  the  many  acquaintances  whom 
Hay  had  already  made  in  England,  he  added  new 
ones  at  each  visit,  and  some  of  these  ripened  into 
friends.  The  bonds  thus  formed  proved  later  precious 
in  ways  he  never  dreamed  of. 


408  JOHN  HAY 

To  E.  C.  Stedman 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  June  28,  1882. 

Mrs.  Hay  has  put  a  heavy  load  on  me  —  in  charg 
ing  me  to  ask  you  to  write  some  verses  in  her  book. 
I  know,  better  than  most  of  the  profane,  what  a 
corvee  this  is.  But  I  begin  myself  to  wish  to  see  the 
book  completed,  and  you  are  too  important  a  vic 
tim  to  escape.  You  will  see  how  worthy  the  com 
pany  is  of  you :  —  Emerson,  Longfellow,  and  others. 
Don't  damn  me  too  much,  —  say  about  half  what  I 
deserve. 

To  complete  your  kindness  and  fill  up  the  measure 
of  my  imprudence  —  would  you  mind  giving  me  a 
letter  to  Swinburne?  I  will  not  crowd  upon  him, 
but  if  ever  I  come  in  his  way,  I  would  like  to  be 
indebted  to  you  for  an  introduction  to  him.  .  .  .  We 
sail  from  New  York  July  15. 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

ACTON  PARK,  WREXHAM. 

September  18,  1882. 

Did  you  learn  what  Alma  Tadema  would  ask,  say, 
for  one  of  those  pretty  little  pictures  of  his,  the  one 
with  two  figures  in  it?  If  it  were  not  too  monstrous 
I  think  I  would  get  Mr.  Stone  to  buy  it.  Do  not  take 
the  trouble  to  ask  anybody  about  it  if  you  have  not 


FRIENDSHIPS  409 

heard.  I  want  also  to  impress  upon  your  mind  that 
if  you  ever  make  another  bargain  with  an  English 
publisher,  you  must  talk  guineas,  not  dollars,  nor 
pounds.  He  will  accept  your  numerals  just  as  quick 
in  guineas,  and  you  will  gain  some  six  dollars  in  a 
hundred  by  it.  It  is  the  custom  among  artists  and 
men  of  letters,  so  do  not  lower  the  standard. 

Saturday  last  we  drove  from  this  lovely  place  (a 
seventeenth  century  house  in  which  the  vile  Judge 
Jeffreys  was  born,  now  the  seat  of  a  family  of  baronets 
the  most  amiable  conceivable)  to  Hawarden  Castle, 
the  residence  of  the  Prime  Minister.  We  were  dis 
appointed  in  not  seeing  the  Grand  Old  Man,  who  was 
detained  in  London  by  a  cabinet  council ;  but  Mrs. 
Gladstone  was  at  home  and  very  gracious.  I  say 
all  this  merely  as  an  introduction  to  the  weighty 
fact  that  I  saw  on  the  drawing-room  table  a  much- 
thumbed  copy  of  "A  Foregone  Conclusion,"  and  the 
Prime  Ministress  authorized  and  requested  me  to 
say  to  you  how  much  she  liked  it.  We  went  to-day 
to  visit  Chirk  Castle,  a  grand  old  pile  of  the  date  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  still  in  perfect  preservation 
and  always  continuously  inhabited  since  it  was  built. 
It  was  a  royal  appanage  until  Elizabeth's  time,  who 
sold  it  to  the  family  who  now  live  in  it.  This  is  the 
first  thing  of  the  sort  I  have  ever  seen  except  War 
wick,  and  this  is  in  many  respects  far  finer.  .  .  . 


4io  JOHN  HAY 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

HOTEL  BEAU  SITE,  CANNES. 
December  20,  1882. 

.  .  .  After  I  wrote  you  in  Paris  I  saw  some  doctors 
who  told  me  without  collusion  that  if  I  would  stay 
in  Paris  forty  days  and  take  douche  baths  I  would  be 
well.  They  were  both  great  swells  and  the  coinci 
dence  of  their  views  rather  struck  me.  I  remembered 
also  that  it  took  exactly  the  same  time  in  Noah's 
day,  to  cure  the  world  of  most  of  its  infirmities  by 
the  same  method ;  and  so,  like  an  ass,  I  gave  up,  or 
rather,  postponed,  my  trip  to  the  South,  and  went 
through  my  douches,  with,  of  course,  no  result  what 
ever.  I  went  back  to  my  doctors  and  reported.  One 
said:  "Better  stop  your  douches!  go  to  Cannes  and 
amuse  yourself!  You  will  soon  be  all  right.  Forty 
francs !  thank  you !  good-bye ! " 

The  other  said:  "Eh  bien!  instead  of  six  weeks, 
take  three  months  of  douches.  Take  them  in  Cannes, 
if  you  like,  or  in  Nice" ;  and  with  that  he  gave  me  an 
entire  change  of  drugs;  —  "Forty  francs!  thank  you, 
bon  voyage!"  There  was  nothing  Noachian  about 
three  months,  so  I  came  away  determined  to  do 
nothing  he  told  me.  .  .  . 

P.S.  After  shutting  my  letter  I  looked  at  the 
Christmas  Harper's,  and  found,  natmellement,  that 


FRIENDSHIPS  411 

your  farce l  was  the  pearl  of  the  collection.  It  made 
me  laugh  audibly  which  is  mucho  decir.  I  would  give 
money  to  see  it  on  the  stage.  There  is  a  little  wo 
man  at  the  Vaudeville  who  played  in  Tete  de  Linotte, 
who  would  be  the  best  Mrs.  Roberts  on  earth.  But  it 
would  be  impossible  here,  as  a  French  sleeping-car  is  a 
sad  parody  on  our  glorious  institution.  It  has  no  soci- 
ableness,  no  promiscuity,  no  chance  for  love  or  war. 
By  the  way,  how  James  is  catching  it  for  his  "  Point 
of  View"!2  In  vain  I  say  to  the  Howling  Patriot: 
"  The  point  of  view  is  clearly  and  avowedly  the  point 
of  view  of  a  corrupted  mother  and  daughter,  spoiled 
by  Europe;  of  a  filthy,  immoral  Frenchman;  of  a 
dull,  well-meaning  Englishman!"  But  they  respond: 
"Miss  Sturdy  is  James  himself";  and  as  she  says 
children  are  uproarious  in  America,  and  women's 
voices  are  higher  than  their  manners,  there  is  for 
giveness  for  the  writer.  The  worst  thing  in  our  time 
about  American  taste  is  the  way  it  treats  James. 
I  believe  he  would  not  be  read  in  America  at  all  if 
it  were  not  for  his  European  vogue.  If  he  lived  in 
Cambridge  he  could  write  what  he  likes,  but  because 
he  finds  London  more  agreeable,  he  is  the  prey  of  all 
the  patriotisms.  Of  all  vices  I  hold  patriotism  the 
worst  when  it  meddles  with  matters  of  taste. 

1  The  Sleeping  Car. 

1  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady  was  published  that  year. 


4i2  JOHN  HAY 

To  J.  G.  Nicolay 

PARIS,  March  8,  1883. 

...  I  have  been  so  inert  and  lifeless  since  I  came 
over  here  that  I  have  not  written  a  letter  except  on 
the  stimulus  of  receiving  one.  I  have  never  been  so 
idle  in  my  life.  It  was  of  set  purpose,  and  I  think  it 
has  been  wholesome. 

To  give  you  in  a  word  our  itinerary :  -  -  We  ar 
rived  in  England  the  end  of  last  July;  spent  a  few 
weeks  in  London,  and  then  went  north;  saw  Lincoln, 
York,  Edinburgh,  and  Aberdeen ;  then  went  to  visit 
a  Baronet  in  the  Highlands  named  Sir  John  Clark, 
passed  a  delightful  week  with  him,  then  went  to  the 
shore  of  the  Northern  Ocean  at  Inverness.  Thence 
down  the  Caledonian  Canal  to  Oban,  Staff  a,  and 
lona.  Then  back  to  Hastings,  where  we  had  left  the 
•  children  during  all  these  philanderings.  We  went  up 
to  London  again  after  that;  went  to  North  Wales  to 
visit  another  Baronet  and  M.P.,  Sir  Robert  Cunliffe. 
At  his  house  we  met  the  Judge  Advocate-General 
in  Gladstone's  Government,  Mr.  Osborn-Morgan, 
M.P.,  who  invited  us  to  visit  him,  which  we  did,  and 
passed  a  pleasant  day  or  two  in  an  Inigo  Jones  house 
in  the  mountains  of  Wales.  Then  we  went  on  a 
regular  debauch  of  English  cathedrals:  --  Hereford, 
Worcester,  Gloster,  Wells,  and  Salisbury;  and  after 


FRIENDSHIPS  413 

that,  we  broke  for  Hastings  again;  and  after  a  week 
of  rest  by  the  summer  sea  we  gathered  up  the  whole 
caboodle  and  went  over  to  Paris. 

I  was  still  rather  miserable  and  at  last  went  to  two 
doctors,  W.  B.,  an  American  Egyptian,  and  the  fa 
mous  C.,  the  same  day.  They  both  advised  the  same 
thing,  douche  baths,  tonics,  and  bromides.  I  fol 
lowed  their  prescriptions  pretty  faithfully,  off  and 
on,  until  now.  In  December  we  went  to  Cannes 
with  the  children,  and  that  has  been  our  home  all 
the  winter,  —  and  a  delicious  place  it  is,  —  eternal 
June  with  an  air  loaded  with  orange  blossoms.  We 
made  our  little  tour  through  Provence:  —  Nimes, 
Aries,  Aigues-Mortes,  Pont  du  Card,  —  and  a  longer 
trip  to  Florence  and  Siena,  where  we  met  Howells. 

I  am,  I  think,  considerably  better,  though  I  have 
given  up  all  hopes  of  being  twenty-one  again. 

We  sail  for  home  on  the  loth  of  May  in  the  Ger 
manic,  and  I  hope  to  get  to  work  immediately,  or  as 
soon  as  practicable  after  that.  I  saw  the  Comte  de 
Paris  at  Cannes  and  he  asked  me  to  give  you  his 
Royal  compliments. 

Thanks  for  the  scrap.  King  did  not  write  "  Demo 
cracy/'  nor  did  I. 

In  the  next  two  letters,  addressed  to  Mr.  Stone, 
Hay  wrote  to  interest  his  correspondent;  for  the 


414  JOHN  HAY 

father-in-law  was  both  sick  in  body  and  apprehen 
sive  in  mind,  at  the  signs  of  encroaching  anarchy. 

To  Amasa  Stone 

PARIS,  March  n,  1883. 

DEAR  MR.  STONE:  — 

There  is  a  feeling  of  deep  distrust  and  anxiety  in 
the  public  mind.  A  demonstration  took  place  day 
before  yesterday  on  the  Esplanade  des  Invalides 
which  might  easily  have  become  very  serious.  A  few 
bakers'  shops  were  pillaged  and  a  crazy  creature 
named  " Louise  Michel"  tried  to  get  the  mob  to 
march  to  the  Elysees  Palace,  but  the  cuirassiers 
came  on  the  ground  and  dispersed  them.  Another 
riot  was  feared  for  to-day,  and  the  streets  are  full  of 
soldiers  riding  in  every  direction.  Commerce  is  in  a 
great  state  of  prostration.  The  laborers  have  had  the 
mischief  put  into  their  heads  by  trade-unions,  etc., 
and  the  consequence  is  that  cheap  merchandise  is 
coming  in  from  Germany  and  underselling  the 
French  on  their  own  ground.  Then  the  politicians 
in  the  Assembly  are  so  eager  for  their  individual  ad 
vancement  that  no  government  lasts  more  than  a 
few  weeks  and  a  painful  impression  of  uncertainty 
has  thus  grown  up  throughout  France. 

.  .  .  [Helen]  has  learned  a  good  deal  in  the  past 
year.    She  reads  very  well  and  has  begun  to  write 


FRIENDSHIPS  415 

and  knows  a  good  deal  of  French.  Del  is  half  a  head 
taller  than  she  and  is  getting  along  pretty  well  in  his 
studies  also.  They  are  all  lively,  but  have  caught 
little  colds  in  this  harsh  and  damp  air.  Paris  is  a 
poor  place  to  live  in. 

LONDON,  May  2,  1883. 

.  .  .  I  have  been  reading  the  life  of  Carlyle,  and 
the  other  day  I  walked  down  to  the  little  house  where 
he  lived  and  died  and  near  which  his  statue  now 
stands  in  bronze.  At  your  age  he  suffered  precisely 
as  you  do,  deep,  nervous  depression,  persistent  indi 
gestion  and  loss  of  sleep  —  a  general  disaster  and  irri 
tation  of  the  entire  nervous  system.  His  misery 
seems  to  have  been  of  the  keenest  character.  Yet  he 
lived  to  be  eighty-six  years  of  age,  and  the  last 
twenty- five  years  of  his  life  were  comparatively 
healthy  and  free  from  pain.  I  met  the  other  day  at 
dinner  an  old  gentleman  named  H.,  eighty- two  years 
old.  He  told  me  that  between  sixty  and  sixty-five 
his  digestion  seemed  hopelessly  impaired.  He  could 
eat  and  drink  nothing  and  slept  very  little.  Now  he 
dines  out  every  night  and  is  the  gayest  of  the  com 
pany  wherever  he  is.  I  rely  on  your  strong  constitu 
tion,  your  sober  and  moral  life,  the  reserve  of  vital 
ity  you  have  about  you,  to  wear  out  all  your  present 
troubles  and  to  bring  you  to  a  healthy  and  happy  con- 


416  JOHN   HAY 

dition  again.  You  have  so  much  to  live  for,  to  enjoy 
the  results  of  the  good  you  have  done  and  to  continue 
your  career  of  usefulness  and  honor. 

Yours  affectionately. 

To  Henry  James 

CLEVELAND,  August  n,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  JAMES:  - 

When  I  was  in  Florence,  Larkin  Mead  1  made  for 
me  a  very  admirable  bronze  medallion  of  Howells, 
and  I  write  now  to  beg  that  if  you  find  yourself  soon 
in  Florence  again  you  will  let  him  have  a  shy  at  your 
head  also  for  me.  I  have  written  to  him  about  it.  It 
will  give  you  almost  no  annoyance  at  all,  as  he  works 
with  great  swiftness  in  such  things,  and  if  he  suc 
ceeds  with  you  as  well  as  he  did  with  Howells,  the 
portrait  will  do  you  no  discredit  and  will  be  a  great 
ornament  to  my  house. 

I  am  nearly  through  my  year's  hard  work,  and  am 
to  start  in  a  day  or  two  with  Nicolay  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains  for  a  few  weeks'  idleness. 

I  greatly  enjoyed  your  Daudet  in  the  Century, 
though  demurring  a  little  at  your  undue  generosity. 
Your  palinode  was  excessive,  I  thought.  He  is  a 
"  great  little  writer. "  The  "  Evangeliste  "  is  dreary, 

1  Larkin  Goldsmith  Mead,  born  in  1835,  American  sculptor; 
brother-in-law  of  W.  D.  Howells. 


FRIENDSHIPS 

the  work  of  a  genius  smitten  with  locomotor  ataxia; 
(if  I  had  known  that  word  was  so  long,  I  should  never 
have  begun  upon  it) .  There  is  no  coordination  in  it. 
Besides,  a  man  who  is  such  an  idiot  morally  can 
never  sit  down  at  meat  with  Shakespeare  and  you 
fellows.  .  .  . 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

IN  THE  CLOUDS,  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS, 
COLORADO,  September  9,  1883. 

.  .  .  Nicolay  and  I  are  in  camp  in  a  most  beautiful 
and  rugged  eyrie  9000  feet  high,  sometimes  called 
Crystal  Park,  not  far  from  Manitou  Springs,  which  is 
our  P.O.  address.  If  you  were  here,  —  but  some  day 
you  will  come.  —  I  am  looking  about  for  a  place  to 
build  a  hut,  which  I  hope  you  will  share  with  me. 
The  bigness  of  the  beauty  of  the  place  is  something 
I  am  not  able  to  describe  and  shall  not  try.  I  came 
away  from  Cleveland  pretty  wretched  and  am  al 
ready  a  good  deal  better.  I  will  come  earlier  next 
year  and  stay  longer.  I  expect  to  be  here  at  least 
a  fortnight  more.  .  .  . 

Having  seen  some  of  Hay's  friendships  during  the 
first  ten  years  of  his  married  life,  and  having  learned 
to  know  him  better,  we  may  now  turn  to  the  begin 
nings  of  his  political  career. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

POLITICS 

DURING  the  half-century  following  the  Civil 
War,  American  development  refutes  the  com 
mon  saying  that  war  is  good  for  a  people  because,  in 
calling  out  their  courage  and  requiring  of  them  for 
titude  and  self-sacrifice  not  less  than  valor,  it  puts 
them  to  the  test  of  ultimate  reality.  In  truth,  how 
ever,  though  there  have  been  wars  through  all  the 
ages,  none  has  ever  yet  cured  the  most  intimate  so 
cial  diseases,  but  on  the  contrary,  war  causes  these 
to  flourish  and  it  raises  up  other  evils  of  its  own. 

The  two  benefits  which  resulted  from  the  Ameri 
can  Civil  War  were  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the 
preservation  of  the  geographical  union  of  the  United 
States.  Among  the  evils  it  bequeathed  were  sec 
tionalism,  a  diminished  respect  of  the  citizen  for  the 
State,  the  commutation  of  patriotism  into  pensions, 
the  preferment  of  soldiers  to  civil  offices  for  which 
they  were  unfit,  the  centralization  of  the  national 
governmental  power,  and  the  unbridling  of  national 
extravagance. 

Perhaps  we  should  count  as  a  third  benefit  the 
swiftness  with  which,  in  1865,  the  Union  and  the 


POLITICS  419 

Southern  armies  dissolved.  Yesterday,  a  million 
soldiers  hot  from  battle ;  to-day,  as  if  transformed  by 
a  magician's  wand,  a  million  farmers,  clerks,  mer 
chants,  laborers,  operatives  —  busy  again  at  their 
peaceful  tasks.  No  military  despotism ;  no  truculence 
of  Pretorian  Guards;  no  Prussian  war  lord  and  his 
underlings  compelling  a  nation  to  worship  Moloch 
as  the  highest  God.  In  the  noblest  qualities  of  a  sol 
dier,  the  Americans  had  never  been  surpassed ;  and 
yet  they  testified  in  disbanding  that  they  knew  that 
peace,  not  war,  is  the  normal  state,  the  ideal,  of  civ 
ilized  society.  Small  wonder  that  their  muster-out 
roused  the  admiration  of  the  world ! 

But  in  subtler  ways  the  Civil  War  harmed  Amer 
ican  Democracy.  It  filled  every  civic  office  —  from 
president  to  hog-reeve  —  with  ex-soldiers.  Five  pre 
sidents  —  Grant,  Hayes,  Garfield,  Harrison,  and 
McKinley  —  came  into  the  White  House,  directly 
or  indirectly,  because  of  their  military  record.  The 
corruption  of  an  institution  begins  when  those  who 
pilot  it  are  chosen  for  qualities  contrary,  if  not  for 
eign,  to  its  purpose.  So,  too,  the  desperate  need  of 
money  to  finance  the  war  led  to  the  adoption  of  a 
high  tariff,  which  stimulated  unhealthy  production: 
and  when  the  war  was  over,  the  beneficiaries  of  the 
tariff  —  like  the  fever-patient  who,  on  his  recovery, 
finds  the  morphine  habit  fixed  upon  him — demanded 


420  JOHN  HAY 

higher  protection  and  still  higher.  The  Republican 
Party  already  ominously  strong  because  of  its  prestige 
in  the  Civil  War,  made  Protection  the  cornerstone 
of  its  creed;  and  it  veiled  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
capitalists'  party  by  claiming  to  protect  American 
labor;  yet  it  revealed  its  true  spirit  in  encouraging 
unrestricted  immigration,  in  order  to  supply  capital 
ists  with  the  cheapest  labor. 

The  captains  of  industry,  the  manufacturers  and 
mine-owners  and  promoters,  controlled  the  Govern 
ment  in  so  far  as  they  caused  it  to  fix  the  tariff  rates 
they  themselves  dictated  —  a  denial  of  that  princi 
ple  of  equality  which  is  the  sheet  anchor  of  Democ 
racy.  They  were  numbered  by  thousands,  or  at  most 
by  tens  of  thousands.  The  multitudes  who  beset 
the  Government  for  favor  and  support  through  the 
pension  system  reached  a  million  or  more.  Dignity, 
self-respect,  honesty  itself,  succumbed  to  the  temp 
tation  of  the  pension-mongers.  Frauds  were  so  fre 
quent  that  the  Pension  Bureau  ceased  to  allow  the 
rolls  of  its  beneficiaries  to  be  inspected  —  the  most 
shameless  official  conniving  at  robbery  this  country 
has  known. 

With  the  pensioners  as  with  the  capitalists  the 
primal  harm  was  not  the  shocking  waste  of  public 
money  but  the  debasement  of  civic  ideals.  The  four 
thousand  million  dollars  poured  out  to  the  veterans 


POLITICS  421 

created  a  vast  body  of  Americans  who  regard  the  Na 
tional  Treasury  as  fair  prey  for  every  rapacity.  The 
conception  that  each  citizen  should  defend  public 
money  from  theft  or  waste  even  more  scrupulously 
than  he  would  a  private  trust,  was  dismissed  as  an 
iridescent  dream.  Another  stab  to  Democracy,  which 
cannot  function  perfectly  unless  every  member  is 
honest. 

The  influx  of  millions  of  foreigners  raised  further 
impediments.  The  aliens  came  mostly  from  countries 
where  they  had  had  little  or  no  experience  in  self- 
government.  They  brought  with  them  their  tribal, 
their  racial,  their  religious,  and  their  international 
feuds.  And  as  they  transplanted  to  America  the 
creeds  of  discontent  and  revolution  which  had  long 
kept  Europe  alarmed,  the  word  ''proletariat "  became 
naturalized  here  much  sooner  than  many  who  bore 
it.  They  thrust  the  debate  of  the  social  revolution 
prematurely  on  the  United  States,  and  having  never 
passed  through  the  experience  of  constitutional  meth 
ods,  they  saw  no  alternative  to  the  Despotism  from 
which  they  had  fled  except  the  Socialism  or  the 
Anarchism  to  which  they  would  blindly  leap. 

On  the  surface,  the  half-century  seemed  pros 
perously  given  up  to  money-making.  Expansion  was 
bound  to  come,  but  the  artificial  stimulus  caused  its 
rate  and  its  extent  to  be  unhealthily  exorbitant.  To 


422  JOHN  HAY 

watch  a  nation  grow  opulent  is  not  necessarily  more 
edifying  than  to  watch  the  aurification  of  the  indi 
vidual  plutocrat  —  and  what  that  is  the  Greeks  typi 
fied  once  for  all  in  Midas.  This  process  went  on,  how 
ever,  just  as  surely  in  Europe  as  in  the  United  States. 
Some  countries,  like  Germany,  combined  the  mate 
rializing  pursuit  of  wealth  with  the  brutalizing  pur 
suit  of  militarism.  All  had  their  scorn  of  the  vulgar 
American  dollar,  and  all  encouraged  their  parasitic 
nobles  to  marry  the  daughters  of  American  million 
aires,  and  Kings  and  Kaisers  prudently  invested  in 
American  securities.  Great  is  cant. 

These  were  some  of  the  principles,  unfavorable  if 
not  actively  injurious,  among  which  American  De 
mocracy  had  to  maintain  itself  as  best  it  could.  In 
an  industrial  age,  the  government  is  inevitably  con 
trolled  by  the  masters  of  industrialism.  So  the  Re 
publican  Party,  which  was  in  power  at  the  end  of 
the  Civil  War,  became  by  a  quite  natural  metamor 
phosis  the  capitalists*  organ. 

Like  millions  of  his  contemporaries  John  Hay  con 
tinued  to  be  a  Republican,  not  because  that  party 
fostered  plutocracy  in  granting  special  privileges 
to  capital,  but  because,  first  of  all,  it  had  saved  the 
Union,  it  had  put  down  slavery.  In  his  youth,  it 
kindled  his  conscience.  He  had  seen  Lincoln  guide 


POLITICS  423 

its  councils  and  direct  its  mighty  forces  to  preserve 
Democracy  on  earth;  his  own  associates  had  been 
chiefly  Republicans.  His  instinct  was,  to  suspect  that 
the  seeds  of  slavery  and  rebellion  still  lurked  in  the 
Democratic  Party,  although  he  did  not  question  that 
individual  Democrats  were  loyal  and  high-minded 
and  just.  That  constitutional  country  cannot  fail 
to  suffer  in  which  one  party  claims  that  it  alone  is 
patriotic.  Such  was  the  case  in  the  United  States 
for  two  decades  after  the  Civil  War. 

Hay  was  keen  enough  to  see  that  thick-and-thin 
partisanship  appears  illogical,  not  to  say  absurd,  to 
the  eyes  of  pure  reason ;  he  repudiated  without  demur 
this  or  that  corrupt  politician  or  party  act:  but  he 
held  that  an  institution  must  be  judged  by  its  essen 
tials  and  not  by  its  details,  especially  where  these 
are  unworthy.  If,  like  most  of  us,  he  could  not  al 
ways  escape  from  the  fallacy  of  his  zeal,  yet  he  was 
so  genuinely  open-minded  that  the  dominant  friend 
ship  of  his  life  was  with  one  who  looked  with  pitying 
irony  upon  political  and  other  orthodoxies  and  those 
who  professed  them. 

Except  when  Hay  voted  for  Tilden  for  Governor 
of  New  York,  his  practice  seems  to  have  been  consis 
tently  loyal.  Republicanism,  the  creed  of  his  youth, 
became  the  habit  of  his  prime.  It  changed  its  prin 
ciples;  it  drifted  out  of  the  old  into  the  new;  but  it 


424  JOHN  HAY 

still  harped  on  the  glories  of  its  origin,  and  it  was 
never  so  insistent  on  posing  as  Abraham  Lincoln's 
party  as  when  it  put  forth  doctrines  most  opposed 
to  those  which  he  stood  for. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  century,  the  Republican 
Party  was  avowedly  the  capitalists'  party;  and  as 
such,  because  capital  is  timorous  and  wary  and  solic 
itous  of  self,  it  became  the  stronghold  of  conserva 
tism.  Thereby  it  drew  to  itself,  not  merely  the  rich, 
but  many  others  whom  the  dread  of  a  social  upheaval 
turned  into  conservatives.  In  this  aspect,  too,  it 
attracted  Hay,  an  unwavering  lover  of  liberty  — 
but  of  liberty  with  order.  He  believed  that  the  hope 
of  the  country,  perhaps  even  of  Western  civilization, 
so  far  as  this  is  based  on  property  .depended  upon 
maintaining  the  Republican  Party  as  a  breakwater 
against  the  rising  tide  of  social  revolution. 

But  enough  of  general  outlines  of  his  political 
creed  and  its  background.  Let  us  examine  now  his 
attitude  in  special  cases.  Generalities  give  us  only 
theories  about  life;  particulars  are  life  itself. 

During  his  career  on  the  Tribune,  Hay's  knowl 
edge  of  New  York  State  politics,  not  less  than  his 
wide  acquaintance  with  public  men,  led  to  his  being 
called  upon  more  and  more  for  political  editorials.  He 
favored  the  Liberal  movement  of  1872,  up  to  the  time 


POLITICS  425 

when  the  Democrats  appropriated  it  and  forced 
Greeley  upon  the  unnatural  combination.  Then  he 
supported  Grant,  and,  in  the  succeeding  four  years, 
his  Republicanism  was  unshaken,  although  he  could 
not  fail  to  detest  the  revelations  of  corruption  in 
high  places  which  scandalized  the  country. 

When  the  Greenback  craze,  the  joint  product  of 
half-baked  vagarists  and  professional  demagogues, 
swept  through  the  country,  Hay  saw  clearly  that, 
as  this  was  not  a  party  delusion,  but  a  national 
menace,  it  was  for  the  "  honest-money^'  men  in  both 
parties  to  unite  and  strangle  it.  His  correspondence 
with  Reid  grows  hot. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CLEVELAND,  OHIO, 
24  September,  1875. 

...  I  am  in  a  profound  disgust  about  the  cam 
paign  here.  These  bellowing,  howling  hounds  expect 
to  carry  the  State,  and  I  have  not  heard  of  any  Demo 
crats  who  will  bolt.  I  had  a  talk  with  Mr.  P.  the 
other  day.  He  is  for  Allen,1  although  he  has  kept 
quiet;  if  Allen  is  elected,  he  (Mr.  P.)  would  be  in 
favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  Resumption  Law.  The 
Herald  here  is  an  inflation  paper.  The  Leader  is  as 
straight  as  a  string  —  copies  the  Tribune  every  day. 
1  William  Allen,  Governor  of  Ohio,  1874-76. 


426  JOHN  HAY 

I  do  not  see  that  you  are  called  upon  to  modify 
your  attitude  in  the  least  in  New  York.  Bigelow  l 
is  sure  to  be  elected  by  a  big  majority,  and  the  whole 
ticket.  You  can  say  this,  and  not  weep  over  it,  with 
out  saying  anything  against  Fred  Seward.2  There 
have  never  been  two  tickets  so  absolutely  irreproach 
able  put  before  the  voters  of  the  State,  and  the  plat 
forms  are  about  as  good  as  they  could  be  made. 

Think  of  this  State  —  with  half  the  Republicans 
and  all  the  Democrats  inflationists  at  heart,  and 
carrying  on  a  campaign  on  the  bald  issue  whether  the 
nation  shall  be  a  liar  and  a  thief  or  not. 

I  don't  like  the  job  you  propose  to  me  of  skinning 
that  skunk. 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  October  i,  1875. 

...  I  think  there  is  no  trouble  about  the  position 
of  the  Tribune.  From  now  until  election-day  here, 
October  12,  you  can  hold  your  present  attitude.  If 
Allen  is  elected,  as  I  fear,  it  will  then  be  advisable 
to  make  no  bones  about  Pennsylvania,  but  say  dis 
tinctly  that  there  is  not  a  ghost  of  a  chance  for  Hart- 
ranft,3  at  the  same  time  keeping  up  a  hot  fight 
against  the  inflation  Democrats.  There  is  really  no 

1  John  Bigelow,   Democratic  Secretary  of   State  in  New  York, 

1875-77. 

2  Republican  nominee  for  Secretary  of  State  in  New  York. 
8  John  F.  Hartranft,  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  1873-77. 


POLITICS  427 

Democratic  or  Republican  Party  left,  and  a  man  can 
with  perfect  consistency  favor  the  one  in  one  State, 
and  the  other  in  another.  In  case  of  the  success  of  the 
Bill  Allen  crowd,  the  thing  to  work  for  is  to  strengthen 
the  Tilden  wing  as  much  as  possible,  either  to  give 
them  the  control  of  the  party,  or  to  break  up  the 
party  into  the  two  natural  fractions  of  honest  men 
and  thieves.  The  Republicans  would  then  either  fol 
low  suit  or  coalesce  with  the  hard-money  Democrats. 
The  bad  sign  here,  and  I  suppose  everywhere,  is 
that  the  inflationists  are  loud  and  bold,  and  the 

,  f  Republicans ) 
hard-money  men,  Democrats  and  <  T 

I  Inflationists  ) 

alike,  are  evasive  and  cowardly. 

The  election  of  1876  was  the  first  turning-point 
since  the  end  of  the  war.  Hay  sympathized  with  the 
widespread  demand  for  purification ;  but  he  thought 
that  this  could  be  trusted  to  the  Republicans  rather 
than  to  the  Democrats  and  Independents;  and  he 
therefore  voted  for  Hayes,  who  had  made  a  good 
governor  of  Ohio,  and  not  for  Tilden,  who  had  given 
his  measure  as  a  reformer  by  cleansing  the  Tammany- 
ized  politics  of  New  York. 

In  the  spring  of  that  year,  before  the  party  con 
ventions  had  nominated,  Hay  wrote  enthusiastically 
to  Reid:  — 


428  JOHN  HAY 

"If  anybody  wants  a  better  pair  of  candidates  than 
Tilden  and  Elaine,  the  two  most  prominent  politi 
cians  of  the  two  parties,  he  must  wait  till  he  gets  to 
heaven  —  and  finds  an  absolute  monarchy.  Better 
men  than  these  are  not  given  to  Republics."  (April 
21,  1876.) 

Elaine  was  set  aside  by  the  Republicans,  because 
of  charges  that  he  had  used  his  position  as  Speaker 
to  enrich  himself.  The  proofs  against  him  were  his 
own  letters ;  and  although  then  and  later  he  tried  to 
explain  away  sentences  which  to  posterity  can  have 
only  one  meaning,  he  never  compassed  his  frantic 
desire  to  be  President.  In  spite  of  proofs,  however, 
many  of  his  adherents  refused  to  believe  him  guilty. 
Hay  too  was  among  the  loyal;  but  in  the  campaign 
he  gave  his  allegiance  to  Hayes,  whom  the  Republi 
cans  chose  in  Elaine's  stead. 

He  writes  from  Cleveland  to  Reid,  on  November 
13,  1876:- 

"I  believe  I  won't  say  anything  about  election. 
I  think  the  Tribune  has  nothing  to  regret  except  a 
few  digs  at  Uncle  Sam  [Tilden]  which  were  not  quite 
fair,  and  your  article  on  Wells,  David  A.  Which  — 
well  —  hold  on  —  let  bygones  be  buried  with  the 
decomposed  past! 

"Give  my  love  to  Taylor  and  Bromley,  and  tell 
them  to  sling  a  column  and  a  half  or  so,  in  memory 


POLITICS  429 

of  one  who  wishes  he  was  back  at  his  desk  —  Quid 
rides?" 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Howells,  who  had  written  a  cam 
paign  biography  of  the  Republican  candidate,  Hay 
speaks  without  reserve.  His  mention  of  Civil  Ser 
vice  Reform  reminds  us  of  the  beginnings  of  a  move 
ment  for  political  purification  of  which  David  A. 
Wells,  referred  to  in  the  preceding  extract,  was  one 
of  the  bravest  promoters.  The  "herd  of  wild  asses' 
colts"  were  Republicans,  hungry  for  office,  a  fact  to 
which  Hay's  Republicanism  did  not  blind  him. 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  February  20,  1877. 

I  thank  you  for  my  share  of  the  "Life  of  Hayes/' 
It  cheered  and  comforted  me  a  good  deal.  The  Gov 
ernor's  conduct  for  the  last  year  has  been  a  complete 
confirmation  of  all  you  said.  I  liked  Tilden  very 
much,  —  voted  for  him  for  Governor, —  the  only 
Democratic  vote  I  ever  cast.  I  did  not  vote  for 
Greeley;  but  I  never  allowed  myself  to  expect  as 
much  from  any  man  as  I  feel  forced  now  to  hold  from 
Hayes.  We  are  in  a  bad  way.  That  herd  of  wild 
asses'  colts  in  Washington,  braying  and  kicking  up 
their  heels,  is  an  unsatisfactory  result  of  a  hundred 
years  of  Democracy.  Of  course  I  do  not  expect  from 
Mr.  Hayes  a  reform  of  the  Civil  Service.  It  is  too 


430  JOHN  HAY 

much  for  any  man  to  accomplish.  Human  nature 
and  free  suffrage  are  against  it.  But  he  can  and  will, 
I  feel  sure,  chasten  the  outrageous  indecency  of  the 
present  system  as  much  as  any  one  could.  .  .  . 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CLEVELAND,  November  26,  1877. 

...  I  do  not  envy  your  feelings  when  you  see 
who  the  successor  of  S.  will  be.  I  have  carefully 
considered  your  objections  to  him.  You  evidently 
don't  believe  the  shoddy  or  gun-stories,  — no  more 
than  I  do.  But  you  are  agin  him  because  he  gives 
good  dinners,  and  sometimes  invites  Democrats. 
This  and  the  other  infamy,  that  Mrs.  S.  once  gave 
some  private  theatricals  and  reserved  a  few  seats  for 
the  Diplomatic  Corps,  cooked  his  goose.  Now  this 
fixes  you  also.  I  have  had  good  dinners  at  your 
house  —  there  were  Democrats  present,  —  all  the 
seats  were  reserved!!  Good-bye,  sweet  prince,  you 
can  never  be  a  foreign  minister! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Tribune  can  feel  cocky 
no-end  over  Platt  and  Conkling,1  and  thank  heaven 
that  the  unclean  things  have  never  had  its  good 
word.  How  Nemesis  has  been  sloshing  around  dur 
ing  the  last  year  or  two!  Only  she  will  be  off  duty 
when  Butler  2  takes  his  seat  in  the  Senate. 

1  T.  C.  Platt  and  Roscoe  Conkling,  New  York  politicians. 
8  Matthew  C.  Butler,  of  South  Carolina. 


POLITICS  431 

Hay's  regard  for  President  Hayes  deepened  as  he 
watched  that  conscientious  chief  magistrate  —  too 
often  set  down  as  mediocre,  but  conscience  in  high 
public  station  is  never  mediocre  —  strive  to  give  the 
country  a  worthy  administration.  He  himself  was 
becoming  the  confidant  of  some  of  the  leaders  of  the 
party,  and  as  his  acquaintance  was  equally  extensive 
in  both  Ohio  and  New  York,  the  two  States  which 
carried  more  politics  per  capita  than  any  others,  he 
enjoyed  the  best  opportunity  for  observing  what  was 
going  on  behind  the  scenes.  His  frequent  visits  to 
Illinois  extended  his  political  knowledge  to  the  third 
pivotal  State. 

During  the  campaign  of  1879  he  spoke  several 
times  in  behalf  of  the  Republican  candidates. 
Speech-making,  even  when  he  had  his  manuscript 
before  him,  was  always  an  ordeal.  In  composing,  he 
alternated  between  buoyancy  and  depression:  first, 
the  hot  fit,  when  ideas  flamed  into  his  mind ;  then,  the 
cold  fit,  when  he  read  over  what  he  had  written  and 
the  words  seemed  gray  and  bleak  and  cold.  He  suf 
fered  by  anticipation  the  misery  of  stage-fright.  But 
once  on  the  platform,  although  nervous  to  the  end, 
he  rarely  failed  to  win  his  audience.  This  success 
came  always  as  a  surprise  to  him,  and  he  used  to 
chronicle  it  in  his  notes  to  his  friends,  not  out  of  con 
ceit,  but  as  a  bit  of  unexpected  news  which  might 


432  JOHN  HAY 

surprise  them  too.    "Luckily/'  he  once  said,  "the 
shakes  go  to  my  knees  and  not  to  my  voice." 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

CLEVELAND,  0.,  August  20,  1879. 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  TRIBUNE  :- 

Into  whose  hands  these  lines  may  fall,  greeting: 

If  it  is  Mr.  Reid,  hail!  and  welcome  back  to  civil 
ization  ! 

If  it  is  Lloyd  or  Nicholson,  or  some  other  d — d 
literary  feller  — 

I  wish  you  would  help  our  Shermanizing  a  little 
by  sticking  into  your  able  and  leading  pages 
somewhere  the  If  between  the  red  lines. 

I  made  this  speech  last  night  in  the  strongest 
Democratic  ward  of  Cleveland  to  an  audience 
nearly  half  Democrats,  and  there  was  nothing 
but  approval  manifested. 

Yours  in  humble  expectation, 

HAY, 
Reformed  Tribune  Man. 

August  25,  1879. 

...  As  you  never  read  anything  but  proofs,  per 
haps  the  form  in  which  this  oration  is  printed  may 
induce  you  to  cast  your  eye  over  it.  I  am  going  to 
say  it  to  a  big  crowd  at  North  Solon  day  after  to- 


POLITICS  433 

morrow  —  the  Pioneers'  Reunion,  —  all  others  are 
spurious. 

We  are  having  a  red  hot  canvass,  --  our  side  espe 
cially;  I  am  invited  to  make  four  speeches  this  week, 
and  am  not  on  any  Committee's  list  either.  I  shall 
try  it  a  little  —  slowly  and  gently  at  first,  and  find 
out  whether  I  can.  I  don't  call  it  making  a  speech 
unless  a  fellow  can  bore  his  audience  heartily  and 
thoroughly  for  an  hour,  without  having  written  a 
word  of  it  beforehand  —  like  William  Allen  and 
sich. 

October  6,  1879. 

...  I  am  making  a  speech  nearly  every  night. 
Here  is  my  last,  made  on  the  Square  Saturday  night 
to  5000  people,  by  the  Brush  light.  Tell  Mr.  Phelps 
he  bullied  me  into  it  last  spring. 

October  15,  1879. 

...  I  left  the  house  early  last  night,  and  spent  the 
evening  at  the  Globe  Theatre,  hearing  the  returns 
[of  the  Ohio  election].  .  .  . 

Is  n't  it  a  frightful  thing  to  think  of,  that  half  the 
people  of  Ohio  vote  so  wickedly  and  blindly  in  favor 
of  inflation  and  ruin,  not  to  speak  of  nullification 
and  other  things?  With  all  our  tremendous  work  this 
summer,  we  have  only  a  majority  of  two  per  cent. 
On  such  an  issue  we  ought  to  have  had  a  hundred 


434  JOHN  HAY 

thousand.    But  I  suppose  the  Democratic  Party  is 

our  Evil  —  our  virtue  is  developed  by  fighting  it. 

The  next  extract  is  interesting. 
To  Whitelaw  Reid 

November  3,  1879. 

.  .  .  Mr.  Evarts  has  written  me  a  most  urgent  and 
kind  letter  —  but  I  have  declined  the  place. 

It  now  looks  as  if  I  could  get  the  nomination  for 
Congress,  and  I  find,  to  my  amazement,  that  I  don't 
want  it.  This  discovery  strikes  me  dumb. 

Mr.  Evarts,  then  Secretary  of  State,  had,  in  fact, 
invited  Hay  to  become  Assistant  Secretary.  The 
offer  was  unexpected,  the  position  attractive,  but 
Hay  decided  that  he  ought  to  decline. 

To  William  M.  Evarts 

506  EUCLID  AVENUE,  CLEVELAND,  O., 
October  28,  1879. 

DEAR  MR.  EVARTS  :- 

I  have  your  letter  of  the  24th  and  I  cannot  express 
the  sentiments  of  gratification  with  which  I  have 
read  it.  To  be  offered  the  privilege  of  succeeding 
Mr.  Seward  1  as  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  is  an 

1  Frederick  W.  Seward,  son  of  Lincoln's  Secretary  of  State. 


POLITICS  435 

honor  as  far  beyond  my  ambition  as  it  is  beyond  my 
merits,  and  the  generous  courtesy  with  which  you 
urge  my  acceptance  of  it,  doubles  the  value  of  the 
offer.  It  is  therefore  with  the  greatest  reluctance 
and  with  positive  pain  that  I  bring  myself  to  say  that 
I  cannot  assume  the  duties  of  this  position  which 
would  otherwise  be  to  me  the  most  agreeable  in  the 
gift  of  the  Government.  Interests  which  I  cannot 
disregard,  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  be  away 
from  Cleveland  this  winter. 

I  hope  you  will  permit  me  to  say  that  the  keenest 
regret  I  feel  in  declining  this  position,  is  for  the  loss 
of  the  pleasure  and  benefit  which  I  should  derive 
from  daily  association  with  yourself. 

Begging  that  you  will  convey  to  the  President  my 
profound  appreciation  of  the  honor  he  and  you  have 
conferred  upon  me,  and  my  sincere  regret  that  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  avail  myself  of  it, 

I  remain,  my  dear  Mr.  Evarts, 

Faithfully  yours, 
JOHN  HAY. 

Mr.  Evarts,  however,  was  not  to  be  gainsaid. 
Reinforcing  his  own  urgence  with  that  of  Whitelaw 
Reid  and  of  other  friends,  he  soon  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  Hay  installed  next  door  to  himself  in  the 
State  Department.  There  is  little  to  record  of  Hay's 


436  JOHN   HAY 

specific  work  as  Assistant  Secretary,  and  the  diplo 
matic  questions  then  up  do  not  concern  us  here. 
He  performed  his  duties  satisfactorily  to  Mr.  Evarts, 
for  whom  he  kept  through  life  an  affectionate  ad 
miration.  It  was  diamond  cut  diamond  when  they 
had  a  friendly  interchange  of  wit.1 

In  Hay's  development  the  main  thing  to  notice  is 
that  the  year  and  a  half  he  spent  in  the  State  Depart 
ment  taught  him  the  routine  of  that  office,  familiar 
ized  him  with  the  methods  of  diplomacy,  and  intro 
duced  him  to  new  groups,  native  and  foreign. 

At  the  same  time  with  Mr.  Evarts's  invitation 
came  the  suggestion  from  Hay's  friends  in  Cleveland 
that  he  should  enter  Congress.  No  doubt  he  had 
cherished  that  idea ;  but  being  both  temperamentally 
shy  and  too  dignified  to  pound  his  way  into  any  of 
fice,  he  hesitated. 

"The  Congress  matter,"  he  wrote  Reid  on  October 
21,  1879,  "  is  not  so  simple  as  my  high-toned  friends 
think.  All  Euclid  Avenue2  says  with  one  accord  that 
I  am  the  man,  but  E.  A.,  with  all  its  millions  and  its 
tone,  does  not  influence  a  single  primary,  and  there 
are  four  or  five  other  candidates,  who  are  all  more 

1  I  am  assured  that  it  was  Hay  and  not  Evarts  who  replied,  when 
an  English  visitor  at  Mount   Vernon  asked,  "Really,  now,  George 
Washington  could  not  have  thrown  a  dollar  across  the   Potomac, 
could  he?"    "Why  not?   He  threw  a  sovereign  across  the  Atlantic." 
I  have  no  means  of  verifying  this. 

2  The  fashionable  street  of  Cleveland. 


POLITICS  437 

or  less  strong  with  the  'boys.'  I  have  not  yet  made 
up  my  mind  whether  to  try  for  it  or  not." 

When  it  appeared,  however,  that  the  Republican 
managers  favored  him  he  consented  to  enter  the  lists. 
The  district  in  question  was  so  solidly  Republican 
that  a  nomination  meant  an  election.  According  to 
the  simple  system  prevailing  there,  —  and  still  in 
happy  operation  elsewhere,  —  for  providing  a  docile 
people  with  mayors,  governors,  judges,  and  con 
gressmen,  the  candidate  needed  only  to  pay  to  the 
party  managers  the  price  they  demanded,  and  they 
relieved  him  of  further  anxiety.  After  election,  while 
they  divided  and  spent  the  spoils,  he  did  his  patri 
otic  duty,  care-free,  in  the  office  which  they  delivered 
to  him. 

The  assessment  levied  on  Hay  was,  apparently, 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  an  amount  which  he  could 
not  pay  himself  and  which,  if  he  had  had  it,  he  might 
have  felt  scruples  against  paying :  for  the  transaction, 
no  matter  who  acquiesces  in  it,  comes  down  to  the 
bald  purchase  of  office.  So  the  committee  visited  Mr. 
Stone,  and  after  congratulating  him  on  the  shining 
honor  about  to  grace  his  son-in-law,  they  hinted  to 
him  that  nothing  remained  to  close  the  bargain  ex 
cept  a  check. 

" Not  a  dollar  shall  you  have  of  me"  —  or  words 
to  that  effect,  put  even  more  emphatically  —  was 


438  JOHN  HAY 

the  old  gentleman's  uncompromising  reply.  Perhaps 
the  shrewd  millionaire  suspected  that  the  whole  af 
fair  was  a  ruse  for  tapping  his  barrel  rather  than  for 
honoring  his  son-in-law.  In  any  case  he  could  not 
be  moved,  and  no  other  friends  or  political  admirers 
came  forward.  The  project  simmered  through  the 
winter;  then  the  managers  discovered  that  Hay  was 
unavailable,  and  he  withdrew. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

WASHINGTON,  March  31,  1880. 

I  ought  to  let  you  know  as  soon  as  any  one  else 
that  I  have  definitely  resolved  not  to  run  for  Con 
gress.  I  do  not  want  it,  and  at  last  know  that  I  do 
not. 

I  think  I  could  be  nominated,  and  the  nearness  of 
the  prospect  set  me  to  thinking  of  it  harder  than  ever, 
—  with  this  result.  I  have  written  to  my  friends  to 
put  an  end  to  the  matter. 

We  must  regret  that  he  was  deprived  of  experience 
in  Congress,  the  only  field  in  his  apprenticeship  as 
a  statesman  in  which  he  lacked  first-hand  training. 
A  few  years'  service  in  the  lower  House,  or  a  single 
term  as  Senator,  would  not  only  have  rounded  out  his 
otherwise  extraordinary  equipment,  but  would  have 
given  him  the  understanding  which  comes  only 


POLITICS  439 

from  fellowship  with  the  very  men  who  were  later  to 
sit  in  judgment  on  his  statecraft.  Journalism  teaches 
its  practitioner  policies,  party  methods  and  interests, 
and  the  ways  of  individual  politicians;  but  the  com 
manding  editor  is,  properly,  a  critic.  Between  the 
critic  and  the  doer  a  gulf,  wide  and  rarely  bridged, 
is  set.  So,  too,  the  ambassador  or  the  cabinet  of 
ficer,  far  from  sympathizing  with  the  Congressman's 

point  of  view,  is  unavoidably,  from  his  position,  in 

/ 

danger  of  misjudging  it.  The  executive  branch  re 
gards  the  legislative  as  meddlesome  if  not  actually 
antagonistic.  To  his  detriment,  therefore,  was  Hay 
shut  out  from  legislative  training. 

If  he  felt  chagrin  at  being  dropped,  he  soon  got 
over  it,  as  this  letter  to  Mr.  Howells  testifies. 

To  W.  D.  Howells 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  May  24,  1880. 

Thanks  for  M.'s  letter,  which  I  return.  His  idea 
is  as  judicious  as  it  is  daring.  A  club  which  would 
hold  him  and  you  and  me,  and  then  reach  out  for 
H.  etc.,  —  and  still  keep  modest,  —  staggers  and 
fatigues  the  faculty  of  wonder.  I  wish  he  and  you 
would  come  down  here  and  hold  the  first  meeting  of 
three  at  my  house. 

I  feel  what  the  French  call  a  deaf  rage  when  I  think 
of  your  having  spent  a  week  in  Washington,  and 


440  JOHN  HAY 

my  not  having  seen  Mrs.  Ho  wells  at  all,  and  you 
only  a  minute.  If  I  were  a  saint,  it  would  be  enough 
for  me  to  know  that  you  had  a  pleasant  visit  your 
selves;  but  I  cannot  help  feeling  like  the  Dutchman 
who,  when  he  was  in  the  calaboose  and  heard  from 
a  later  arrival  of  an  uproarious  spree  the  night  before 
when  hogsheads  of  lager  were  drunk  and  two  men 
killed,  —  sighed  with  soft  regret  —  "And  I  was  not 
dere." 

I  did  not  get  the  chance  I  wanted  to  avow  my  sin 
and  ask  absolution.  I  have  positively  and  definitely 
given  up  Congress,  and  I  shall  hold  no  more  office 
after  next  March.  I  think  there  is  no  such  Apples- 
of-Sodom  fruit  in  the  world,  and  I  am  out,  finally, 
as  soon  as  I  can  get  away.  I  would  give  a  pot  of  money 
to  get  out  to-day,  — nothing  but  my  personal  regard 
for  Mr.  Evarts  keeps  me  through  the  administra 
tion.  Yet  this  is  the  pleasantest  place  in  the  govern 
ment,  and  I  like  and  respect  the  principal  people  in 
office,  — •  which  makes  an  a  fortiori  case  against  any 
thing  else.  .  .  . 

The  contest  between  Garfield  and  Hancock  in 
1880  should  have  been  fought  on  the  issue  of  Pro 
tection,  but  the  Democrats  resorted  to  strategic  re 
treats  which  landed  them  far  in  the  rear.  Hay  of 
course  supported  General  Garfield,  and  how  great 


POLITICS  441 

a  value  the  candidate  set  upon  his  advice  is  plain  in 
the  following  letters:  — 

To  General  James  A.  Gar  field 

1400  MASSACHUSETTS  AVE.,  WASHINGTON, 
Oct.  1 8,  1880. 

DEAR  GENERAL  GARFIELD:- 

I  did  not  come  down  on  you  while  I  was  at  Cleve 
land,  simply  because  I  felt  that  the  truest  service  I 
could  render  would  be  to  stay  away  —  but  as  it  will 
not  take  a  minute  of  your  time  to  read  this  note,  I 
write  it  to  offer  my  congratulations  from  the  bottom 
of  my  heart.  I  believe  that  you  will  carry  every 
Northern  State  and  will  go  into  the  Presidency  with 
the  most  magnificent  moral  backing  any  one  has  had 
in  our  time.  I  know  you  will  feel  no  selfish  gratifica 
tion  in  this,  but  your  opportunities  for  good  will  be 
incalculable.  Great  things  are  to  happen  under  your 
administration.  It  would  be  an  impertinence  for  me 
to  intrude  upon  the  high  subjects  that  must  now  be 
occupying  your  mind.  But  even  at  the  risk  of  seem 
ing  presumptuous  I  will  rid  myself  of  this  word 
which  has  positively  haunted  me  for  a  week.  Be 
ware  of  your  own  generosity !  On  the  2d  of  November, 
you  ("not  Launcelot  nor  another ")  are  to  be  made 
our  President.  I  believe  it  is  to  be  an  administration 
full  of  glory  and  benefit  to  the  country  —  and  it  will 


442  JOHN  HAY 

be  glorious  and  fruitful  just  in  the  proportion  that  it 
is  your  own.  You  do  not  need  the  whispered  admoni 
tion  of  the  ancient  monarchs,  "Remember  thou  art 
mortal."  It  will  pay  you  to  keep  a  cheap  friend  to 
drone  continually  in  your  ear,  "It  was  you  who  were 
nominated  at  Chicago  and  elected  by  the  people." 

Soon  after  his  election,  General  Garfield  proposed 
making  Hay  his  private  secretary  and  assigning  to 
the  post  a  greater  distinction  than  it  had  had,  so 
that  he  would  have  ranked  with  members  of  the 
Cabinet.  Having  deputed  Whitelaw  Reid  to  sound 
him,  and  having  had  no  answer,  General  Garfield 
wrote  direct.  To  this  letter  Hay  replied :  — 

To  General  Garfield 

1400  MASSACHUSETTS  AVE., 
Christmas  Day,  1880. 

I  received  several  days  ago  from  Whitelaw  Reid 
an  intimation  of  what  you  were  thinking  of  for  me, 
and  I  immediately  wrote  to  him  expressing  my  deep 
sense  of  the  honor  done  me  by  such  a  thought,  and 
the  sincere  regret  I  felt  that  it  was  not  in  my  power 
to  take  the  place.  I  agree  with  you  in  regarding  the 
position  as  one  of  the  greatest  importance  and  shall 
always  be  proud  that  you  thought  of  me  in  connec 
tion  with  it. 


POLITICS  443 

Although  my  letter  to  Reid  was  confidential,  I 
thought  he  would  communicate  to  you  the  purport 
of  it,  but  I  infer  from  yours  of  the  2Oth  that  he  has 
not  done  so. 

I  have  carried  your  letter  in  my  pocket  and  the 
contents  of  it  in  my  head  and  my  heart,  for  several 
days,  with  the  most  earnest  desire  to  catch  myself  in 
such  a  state  of  mind  that  I  might  write  and  tell  you  I 
would  undertake  the  important  and  honorable  duty 
you  offer  me.  But  I  cannot  delay  my  answer  any 
longer,  and  so  must  say  how  sorry  I  am  that  I  can 
not  see  the  way  clear  to  doing  it.  If  I  could  share 
your  own  view  of  my  fitness  for  the  place  I  should  be 
inclined  to  sacrifice  all  other  considerations  and  go 
to  work.  But  I  am  not. 

To  do  a  thing  well  a  man  must  take  some  pleasure 
in  it,  and  while  the  prospect  of  spending  a  year  or  so 
in  intimate  relations  with  you  and  Mrs.  Garfield 
offers  a  temptation  which  is  almost  more  than  I  can 
resist,  the  other  half  of  the  work,  the  contact  with 
the  greed  and  selfishness  of  office-seekers  and  bull 
dozing  Congressmen,  is  unspeakably  repulsive  to 
me.  It  caused  me  last  spring  to  refuse,  definitely  and 
forever,  to  run  for  Congress.  It  has  poisoned  all  of  the 
pleasure  I  should  otherwise  have  derived  from  a  con 
scientious  and  not  unsuccessful  discharge  of  my  du 
ties  in  the  State  Department.  The  constant  contact 


444  JOHN  HAY 

with  envy,  meanness,  ignorance,  and  the  swinish 
selfishness  which  ignorance  breeds,  needs  a  stronger 
heart  and  a  more  obedient  nervous  system  than  I  can 
boast.  I  am  not  going  back  on  Democracy.  It  is  a 
good  thing  --  the  hope  and  salvation  of  the  world.  I 
mean  simply  that  I  am  not  fit  for  public  office.  You 
will  find  some  one,  I  am  sure,  who  can  do  these  things 
much  better  than  I  could,  and  will  take  pleasure  in 
them  as  well. 

All  through  the  heats  of  last  summer  I  looked  for 
ward  to  the  4th  of  March  as  the  day  of  my  deliver 
ance.  I  promised  my  family,  I  promised  Mr.  Stone, 
who  at  considerable  inconvenience  has  taken  care 
of  my  affairs,  that  I  would  come  home  at  that  time 
—  and  although  I  know  that  he  would  acquiesce 
cheerfully  in  anything  I  should  do,  I  should  feel  some 
remorse  in  breaking  up  the  family  arrangements  for 
the  coming  summer.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  much 
hope  of  ever  improving  my  health,  but  the  doctors 
give  me  the  usual  futile  assurances  that  I  will  be 
better  out  of  Washington  in  the  summer  time. 

I  did  not  mean  to  make  a  long  letter  of  this,  but 
the  signal  honor  you  have  done  me  in  selecting  me 
for  the  place  of  the  Government  nearest  yourself,  has 
deeply  touched  me  and  I  could  not  acknowledge  it 
by  a  simple  refusal.  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  tell  you 
some  of  my  reasons  for  declining,  although  they  are 


POLITICS  445 

of  a  sort  that  a  man  of  your  firm  and  even  character 
may  think  trivial  and  not  entirely  creditable  to  me. 

There  is  work  for  all  of  us  during  the  next  four 
years,  and  though  you  are  to  have  the  great  role, 
all  men  of  good-will  can  help  more  or  less.  I  shall 
do  my  share  in  Cleveland,  and  now  that  I  am  cured 
of  my  momentary  error  about  going  to  Congress, 
I  can  do  better  work  than  I  have  ever  done  before. 
I  shall  have  a  good  deal  of  leisure  and  shall  always 
be  at  your  service  for  anything  -  -"  except  these 
bonds." 

Mrs.  Hay  sends  her  regards  to  Mrs.  Garfield.  I 
have  of  course  talked  fully  with  her.  She  saw  both 
sides  of  the  question,  but  resolutely  refused  to  assist 
me  in  the  decision. 

Sincerely  and  gratefully  yours. 

Evidently  General  Garfield  continued  to  urge:  for 
Hay  soon  sent  this  second  letter :  — 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  December  31,  1880. 

DEAR  GENERAL  :  — 

I  have  given  strict  and  earnest  thought  to  the  mat 
ter  of  your  offer  all  this  week,  but  I  cannot  see  any 
reason  to  change  my  mind.  Every  word  I  have  heard 
was  in  favor  of  accepting,  at  first,  but  in  every  case, 
*—  Reid,  Mr.  Sherman,  Mr.  Stone  and  my  wife, 
agreed  with  me  in  the  end.  Even  Nichol  —  that 


446  JOHN   HAY 

Justus  et  tenax  propositi  vir  —  gave  up  the  fight  this 
morning  after  a  campaign  of  as  faithful  work  as  I 
ever  saw.  I  have  myself  been  on  the  affirmative  side 
in  all  my  wishes  and  desires  —  but  the  reason,  I  feel 
sure,  is  on  the  other.  I  know  I  should  not  be  the  help 
to  you  which  you  have  thought,  but  I  should  be,  in 
the  White  House,  the  source  of  many  embarrass 
ments  and  complications. 

I  deeply  regret  that  I  am  compelled  to  decline 
this  most  agreeable  and  honorable  service.  I  wish  I 
could  make  you  see  that  I  do  it  in  your  interests 
more  than  in  my  own.  I  have  had  to  resist  constantly 
the  temptation  offered  by  the  pleasures  and  enjoy 
ments  which  such  a  position  promises.  But  regret 
ting  all  this  as  I  do,  I  know  that  my  decision  is  right. 

There  are  many  things  in  which  no  man  can  serve 
you.  There  are  paths  which  you  must  traverse  ab 
solutely  alone.  The  solitude  which  seems  to  you  a 
penalty  of  your  high  office,  you  will  find  a  blessing 
which  can  only  be  gained  by  wrestling.  The  foot 
pad,  the  cut-purse,  and  the  sycophant  will  always  be 
ready  to  crowd  their  company  on  you.  You  will 
find  reserve  only  among  honest  men. 

I  wish  I  could  save  you  one  moment  of  annoyance 
or  perplexity  but  it  is  hardly  possible  that  anyone 
can  do  that.  It  is  a  comfort  to  know  you  go  into 
the  Presidency  with  the  best  equipment  possible. 


POLITICS  447 

Besides  the  qualities  which  are  personal  to  you,  you 
know  more  of  the  past  and  present  of  government, 
more  history  and  more  politics,  than  any  man  since 
the  younger  Adams,  and  you  are  free  from  his  pe 
culiar  infirmities  of  temper,  which  so  narrowed  and 
distorted  his  views.  "One  thing  thou  lackest  yet"; 
and  that  is  a  slight  ossification  of  the  heart.  I  woe 
fully  fear  you  will  try  too  hard  to  make  everybody 
happy  —  an  office  which  is  outside  of  your  constitu 
tional  powers.  Confine  your  efforts  in  that  direction 
to  Mrs.  Garfield  and  the  children.  As  for  other  mat 
ters,  do  as  you  think  right,  and  it  will  be  right  nine 
times  in  ten  and  not  far  wrong  the  tenth  time,  though 
the  heathen  rage  and  the  people  imagine  a  vain  thing. 
Mrs.  Hay  joins  me  in  wishing  all  good  things  for 
you  and  Mrs.  Garfield. 

Faithfully  yours. 

The  President-elect  ran  into  foreboding  squalls 
in  attempting  to  form  his  Cabinet.  The  penalty 
which  a  party  long  in  the  ascendant  must  pay  is  dis 
cord:  and  the  Republicans  were  now  split  into  sev 
eral  factions  which  either  professed  mutually  con 
flicting  principles  or  rallied  to  the  standards  of  rival 
leaders.  Elaine  and  Conkling  captained  the  two 
largest  divisions  of  the  party;  but  several  of  the 
States  —  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Ohio,  to 


448  JOHN  HAY 

name  no  more  —  boasted  their  local  heads,  as  proud 
and  as  grasping  as  chieftains  of  Scottish  clans.  It 
was  Gar  field's  business  to  endeavor  to  harmonize 
the  dissidents:  but  harmony  could  mean  only  the 
preference  of  one  faction  to  the  other;  and  as  he  had 
been  elected  by  the  forces  which  united  to  defeat 
Grant's  nomination  for  a  third  term, --the  forces 
led  by  Elaine,  —  he  unavoidably  promoted  Elaine, 
and,  in  order  to  requite  the  Independents  who  had 
contributed  to  his  victory,  he  appointed  two  of  them 
—  Wayne  MacVeagh  and  Thomas  L.  James  —  to 
his  Cabinet. 

Stung  at  being  passed  by,  Conkling  and  his  faction 
swore  vengeance,  which  they  believed  they  were 
strong  enough  to  carry  out.  Garfield,  the  good- 
natured,  still  sought  to  temporize,  in  the  hope  of 
making  everybody  happy;  and  besides  the  sullen 
"  Stalwarts,"  he  had  to  appease  the  usual  party  war- 
horses  —  privateers  in  quest  of  any  office,  who  were 
braying  lustily  for  fodder. 

To  President-Elect  Garfield 

1400  MASSACHUSETTS  AVE., 
February  20,  1881. 

DEAR  GENERAL:  — 

The  rumors  of  the  last  day  or  two  have  been  very 
disturbing  —  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  will  have 
"clear  or  clearing  weather'*  next  week. 


POLITICS  449 

I  write  because  you  told  me  to  —  not  because 
I  think  you  need  this  continual  buzzing.  I  suppose 
no  man  in  America  saw  more  clearly  than  you  did 
the  prodigious  importance  of  the  omens  in  the  Phila 
delphia  and  Pittsburg  elections.  The  Ring  is  broken ; 
it  can  still  nominate,  but  it  cannot  possibly  elect. 
The  course  you  hinted  at  will  satisfy  every  exigency 
in  Pennsylvania.  Illinois  and  the  great  "  Stalwart " 
influence  of  the  Northwest  is  already  as  good  as  se 
cured,  I  imagine.  Your  enemy  is  only  threatening 
in  one  direction,  and  only  threatening  there  so  long 
as  his  hostility  is  masked. 

It  is  again  reported  from  Ohio  that  Foster l  is  to 
go  into  the  Cabinet  or  abroad.  I  think  all  the  most 
judicious  men  in  the  State  would  regret  either  course. 
This  restlessness  of  our  leading  men  is  a  great  evil. 
It  seems  impossible  for  a  leading  Republican  ever 
to  stay  where  he  is  put,  or  to  go  into  private  life.  I 
speak  only  as  an  Ohio  Republican,  without  any 
wishes  for  myself  or  any  other  man,  desiring  only 
the  success  of  your  administration,  when  I  say  it 
seems  to  me  impossible  that  any  Ohio  man  should 
now  go  into  your  Cabinet  —  unless  you  should  think 
it  necessary  after  all  to  retain  Sherman.2  And  you 
know  what  that  would  be. 

1  Charles  Foster,  an  Ohio  politician;  later  Governor  of  the  State. 

2  Senator  John  Sherman. 


450  JOHN  HAY 

Every  other  consideration  is  unimportant  com 
pared  with  the  advantage  of  having  a  Cabinet  of  good 
men.  That  recommends  itself.  Factions  and  locali 
ties  are  of  infinitely  little  moment  compared  with 
that  single  consideration. 

But  I  am  wasting  your  time  with  platitudes.  You 
are  walking  with  your  "head  in  a  cloud  of  poisonous 
flies,"  and  we  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  taking 
a  flick  at  them  now  and  then. 

Our  hearts,  our  hopes  are  all  with  you.  We 
are  eager  to  see  you  here,  and  the  administration 
launched. 

Yours  with  respect  and  affection. 

John  Hay  went  from  the  State  Department  to  the 
editor's  office  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  Under  any 
circumstances  to  plunge  into  such  work  would  have 
been  formidable;  for  Hay  the  task  was  doubly  hard 
because  he  took  it  up  at  the  time  when  the  Repub 
lican  tempest  broke.  Conkling  resigned  his  United 
States  Senatorship  in  rage  because  Garfield  ignored 
his  candidates.  His  colleague  —  Thomas  C.  Platt, 
then  a  political  cipher  —  nicknamed  "Me  Too" 
Platt  for  his  apery  —  followed  suit.  But,  contrary 
to  Conkling's  expectations,  the  sun  rose  as  usual  the 
next  morning,  the  Government  at  Washington  pur 
sued  its  diurnal  routine,  and  even  in  New  York 


POLITICS  451 

State  there  were  few  who  lost  either  sleep  or  appetite 
over  the  theatrical  resignations. 

The  open  warfare  between  the  factions  laid  an 
additional  burden  of  responsibility  on  Editor  Hay. 
He  could  not  be  sure  that  he  was  running  the  Tribune 
in  each  crisis  as  Whitelaw  Reid  would  have  done,  and 
therefore  he  wisely  concluded  to  run  it  as  seemed  best 
to  himself.  By  common  consent  the  editorial  page 
was  never  more  vigorous.  Somebody  with  a  taste 
for  epigrams  said :  "  The  rule  of  the  paper  under  Reid 
was  that  of  whips,  while  with  Hay  it  was  that  of 
scorpions."  Assuredly,  Hay  did  not  spare  the  ene 
mies  of  the  Administration,  and  among  his  many 
talents  that  of  invective  was  not  the  least.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  editorial  staff  found  him  strict  in  requir 
ing  punctuality  and  in  judging  the  quality  of  their 
work,  but  always  friendly  and  reasonable.  An  emi 
nent  journalist  wrote  of  him  after  his  death,  that 
"he  was  like  father,  brother,  philosopher,  guide,  and 
friend,  all  in  one." 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE 
NEW  YORK,  May  26,  1881. 

So  you  are  married  one  month  from  to-day  and 
I  am  Editor  of  the  Tribune  ad  interim  the  same 
length  of  time.  I  hope  your  experience  has  been  less 


452  JOHN   HAY 

stormy  and  more  amusing  than  mine.  What  a  time 
we  have  had !  1  I  do  not  regret  it  in  the  least  —  as  a 
fight  like  this  has  been  a  godsend  in  what  would 
otherwise  have  been  a  dull  season.  I  think  we  have 
got  on  very  well  —  behind  none  of  them  in  news  and 
out  of  sight  in  editorial.  I  will  not  indulge  in  proph 
ecy  with  half  a  dozen  cables  between  us,  but  to  speak 
of  certainties,  Roscoe  [Conkling]  is  finished.  That 
Olympian  brow  will  never  again  garner  up  the  thou 
sands  of  yore.  Of  course  we  shall  have  a  bad  state 
of  things  for  a  while  and  shall  almost  certainly  lose 
the  State  next  fall.  But  that  will  be  after  your  return, 
and  I  can  charge  it  to  my  leaving  the  Tribune. 

The  whole  thing  has  been  a  freak  of  insanity  on 
the  part  of  a  man  who  has  lost  sight  of  his  true  rela 
tions  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  was  the  logical 
result  of  the  personality  of  Conkling  and  the  work 
ings  of  the  Boss  system. 

Schurz  2  begins  his  editorial  work  on  the  Post 
to-day  with  a  long,  serious  leader  on  civil  service 
reform. 

Miss  R.  is,  I  think,  looking  better  than  when  you 
left.  She  plays  the  banjo  and  piano  —  rides  and 
receives  visits  and  seems  very  gay  and  happy. 

1  The  fight  over  the   appointment  of  a  Collector  of  the  Port  of 
New  York. 

2  E.  L.  Godkin,  Carl  Schurz,  and  Horace  White  were  joint  edi 
tors  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 


POLITICS  453 

So  far  nothing  has  happened  over  here  to  disturb 
your  equanimity  or  cloud  your  honeymoon.  Enjoy 
yourself  as  much  as  possible.  I  think  we  can  keep  the 
ship  off  the  rocks. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE,  N.Y. 
June  29,  1881. 

...  I  think  there  is  nothing  over  here  which 
need  trouble  you.  The  Tribune  seems  to  suit  every 
body  but  the  ungodly.  Hugh  Hastings  goes  for  me 
every  day  in  eight  or  ten  places,  but  as  it  amuses  him, 
and  I  have  adopted  my  great  patent  remedy  of  not 
reading  him,  I  only  know  it  from  Bishop  and  Miss 
Hutchinson,  who  come  in  to  console  me  when  he  is 
unusually  violent,  —  and  so  I  do  not  object  to  it. 
The  Chicago  Tribune  had  a  lot  of  filthy  little  digs  at 
both  you  and  me,  till  I  frankly  asked  Joe  Medill  to 
put  a  stop  to  it,  which  he  did.  It  was  the  volunteer 
malignity  of  some  " funny  man"  who  wanted  a 
"shining  mark."  That  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  curi 
ous  things  in  our  journalism  --  the  way  a  man  who 
has  never  seen  you  and  knows  nothing  about  you, 
will  take  a  furious  antipathy  to  you  and  blackguard 
you  for  months  together,  without  letting  up. 

On  July  2,  President  Garfield  was  shot  by  the  half- 
crazy  Guiteau.  Throughout  the  summer  he  hung 


454  JOHN   HAY 

between  life  and  death.  Outwardly,  there  was  more 
moderation  in  the  virulence  of  the  political  quar- 
relers;  but  they  knew  that  at  the  President's  death 
the  flames  would  burst  out  afresh. 

To  Whitelaw  Reid 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE,  N.Y. 
September  14,  1881. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  from  you  once  in  a  while,  and  the 
long  intervals  only  serve  to  convince  me  that  you 
are  having  too  good  a  time  to  bother  about  writing 
letters.  Enjoy  every  moment  of  the  time,  for  it  will 
never  come  back  again,  and  though  you  are,  I  trust, 
to  have  many  long  years  of  married  happiness,  you 
will  never  have  the  first  year  over  again.  Mrs.  Hay 
and  I  are  very  anxious  to  go  to  Europe  next  year,  but 
we  hardly  dare  promise  ourselves  that  we  will  go, 
because  of  the  three  small  people  whom  we  cannot 
leave  behind,  and  to  take  whom  will  be  a  constant 
source  of  anxiety. 

I  am  getting  on  so  far  toward  the  end  of  my  inter- 
im-ity  that  I  am  comparatively  easy  about  the  rest 
of  it.  I  do  not  see  that  I  have  made  any  serious  mis 
takes.  Thurlow  Weed  paid  me  the  high  compliment 
the  other  day  of  saying  that  he  was  a  little  afraid  at 
first  I  would  not  know  the  State  well  enough,  but 
that  he  had  long  ago  forgotten  that  I  was  not  a  New 


POLITICS  455 

Yorker.  Of  course  the  credit  of  it  is  mostly  due  to  the 
staff  -  -  but  I  have  paid  great  attention  and  killed  a 
good  deal  of  matter  which  might  have  been  embar 
rassing.  I  have  as  far  as  possible  steered  clear  of  rows 
without  making  the  paper  seem  feeble.  If  it  had  been 
my  paper  I  would  have  taken  the  hide  off  two  or  three 
blackguards  —  but  I  did  n't  want  to  commit  you  to 
new  quarrels.  If  Gar  field  lives,  I  think  you  will  find 
the  paper  in  excellent  position,  when  you  return,  to 
give  it  any  direction  you  see  fit.  That  has  been  my 
special  object  for  the  last  half  of  my  time. 

President  Garfield  died  on  September  19.  When 
the  Reids  returned  in  October,  Hay  retired  from  the 
Tribune. 

That  the  friend  and  adviser  of  presidents,  the  in 
timate  of  cabinet  ministers  and  party  managers, 
whose  fitness  no  one  denied,  should  be  habitually 
shut  out  from  public  service  excites  our  wonder. 
When  Mr.  Evarts  sought  the  most  competent  Assis 
tant  Secretary  of  State  he  could  think  of,  he  asked 
John  Hay.  When  the  editor  of  the  chief  Republican 
newspaper  in  the  United  States  sought  a  substitute 
for  himself,  he  chose  John  Hay.  Why  was  no  perma 
nent  office  opened  to  him? 

The  hints  given  in  this  chapter  should  help  us  to 
a  clue.  Hay's  own  remark,  in  a  letter  to  Whitelaw 


456  JOHN   HAY 

Reid,  who  had  been  offered  and  had  declined  the 
Berlin  mission,  will  further  enlighten  us.  Apparently, 
when  Reid  declined,  Hay  was  "mentioned"  for  the 
place. 

"I  thank  you  for  what  you  said  of  me,  but - 
don't  grin  at  this!  —  Mr.  Evarts  was  right  about  it. 
I  have  not  the  political  standing  necessary  for  the 
place  —  neither  had  Taylor.1  I  tried  to  say  a  word 
to  Taylor  about  it  when  he  was  here,  but  he  was  deaf 
to  any  such  considerations.  Now  you  may  believe  it 
or  not,  but  I  would  not  accept  the  mission  to  Berlin 
if  it  were  offered  to  me.  I  know  I  am  not  up  to  it  in 
many  respects.  At  the  same  time  I  am  free  to  say  I 
would  like  a  second-class  mission  uncommonly  well. 
I  think  White's  2  appointment  an  excellent  one, 
though  I  imagine  you  don't  agree  with  me  on  that." 
(March  30,  1879.) 

Hay  turned  now  in  earnest  to  the  "Life  of  Lin 
coln,"  on  which,  as  on  a  giant  obelisk,  he  and  Nico- 
lay  had  been  hewing  at  intervals  for  a  long  time  past. 

1  Bayard  Taylor,  appointed  Minister  to  Germany  in  1877;  died 
the  next  year. 
*  Andrew  D.  White,  just  appointed  Minister  to  Germany. 


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